A formidable line of engineers, plus an equally formidable line of schoolteachers and musicians on the maternal side, came together to form the enigma known as the synthesist Mark L. Steele, who watched the future blossom in the form of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo flights to the moon and later every space shuttle alongside Elton John’s Rocket Man, and the whole world of electronic musical instruments beginning with Wendy Carlos’s famous album Switched-On Bach.

After seven years of formal piano lessons, Mark began creating simple, original pieces. During four years spent as a high school horn player, he developed his style. He was put in front of one of the first high school synthesizers, an Arp Odyssey, where his skill at the instrument was self-taught. He became acquainted with the modern composer interpretations of Isao Tomita, who, with many other masters and artists, taught Mark about the arrangement of purely electronic sounds, and the blending of electronic and mechanical instrument sounds. Some time into his college years he heard the Gospel, decided to follow Christ and realized a purpose for his original work.

After graduating from college, he was invited to assist in the music ministry at a local church, covering many popular worship choruses and writing original worship choruses and contemporary Christian music. At this time he started building a collection of electronic musical instruments that he named the All-American Cyborg Philharmonic, made up of synthesizer keyboards, tone generators and sound processing devices.

Mark has composed and arranged over 100 instrumental pieces, some for solo piano and some for a virtual electronic orchestra, as well as over 30 worship choruses. His instrumental works include the albums A Little Computer Music and Experiments and Discoveries. He has been invited to record and perform with multiple artists and bands over the years, and has been happy to participate and lend his time and talent. Mark continues to provide music ministry in his local church, alongside writing, producing and engineering recordings of his original work.

And the enigma, having taken on the blessing, continues…