Say hello to host Mark Powers

Mark Pow­ers is a per­cus­sion­ist, an artist, an author, edu­ca­tor and men­tor. Plus, he’s no stranger to the TEDx stage. In fact, he has two talks under his belt and played the role of host for TEDxMt­Hood (for­mer­ly Con­cor­diaU­Port­land) three times.

“I’ve long been a fan of TED and TEDx talks, so being invit­ed to step on stage at sev­er­al of them has led to some of my all-time favorite (and, at times, most ter­ri­fy­ing) expe­ri­ences,” Mark said.

The for­mer Salem res­i­dent (he lived here from 2006 to 2012) who has called Port­land home for the past two years, lives by the adage of lots of eggs in lots of bas­kets.

“I’m try­ing to replace busy with blessed in my vocab­u­lary,” Mark said.

Gen­uine and sin­cere, music has been the cat­a­lyst spark­ing many of his adven­tures as he has trav­eled and taught through­out the world.

As a drum­mer, you can see him per­form with the Port­land band Mbras­catu, or with Haley John­son and Aman­da Richards. He’s shared the stage with Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Devon Evans of Bob Mar­ley and the Wail­ers, Rolling Stones sax­o­phon­ist Tim Ries and Bad Company’s Lynn Sorensen.

He free­lances when­ev­er pos­si­ble and is hap­py for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in record­ing projects, too.

“Two albums I am stoked about are M Ward — I played drums on half — and She & Him. I’m play­ing drums on one track of the Christ­mas album,” Mark said.

He’s been pub­lished in mag­a­zines, com­posed solo/ensemble per­cus­sion pieces and writ­ten numer­ous books on drum­ming. His first children’s board book, I Want to Be a Drum­mer!, was released in Sept. 2016, and his sec­ond book, I Want to Be a Read­er!, will be out in the spring.

He’s an entre­pre­neur, always think­ing about cre­ative ways of mak­ing mon­ey; How he could use his musi­cal knowl­edge to his advan­tage.

“I didn’t think of myself in that way for a long time,” Mark said

Plus, he’s a past Guin­ness World Record hold­er (Longest Drum Roll by a Group: 2003–2005) for play­ing a con­tin­u­ous 12-hour drum­roll.

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Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.