A Serbian American, Dr. Mark Malkovich was born in Eveleth, Minnesota, a mining town north of Duluth in 1930. He played the clarinet as a child, but the piano became his primary instrument. Beginning his study of the piano at fifteen years of age, he eventually tutored under Adele Marcus at New York City’s Juilliard School’s Adele Marcus while majoring in chemistry at Columbia University where he eventually earned his doctorate

After completing his service in the Minnesota National Guard during the Korean War, he graduated from Columbia in the mid-1950s. Mark married Joan Shering in 1950, and the first piece of furniture that they purchased was a Steinway piano.

A successful chemical company executive when he moved to Rhode Island, Mark Malkovich III was in an enviable position when the board of the Newport Music Festival asked him to run their concert series in 1975. The board and the previous director had parted ways, and Dr. Malkovich agreed to take the job for a year on the condition that he not be compensated for his services.

A jovial gentleman, Dr. Malkovich assembled an international musical family whose members he doted on like an exuberant uncle. He earned a reputation as an aficionado of the international music scene, and was an accomplished pianist, numbering Victor Borge among his many friends.

Tragically in 2010, he was killed in a car accident in North Branch, Minnesota, where he was visiting his sister Carol. He was seventy-nine and had lived in Portsmouth, Rhode Island at Prescott Farm. He was survived by a daughter (Kara) and three sons, one of whom, Mark IV, continued his father’s work with the Newport Music Festival through 2017.

John Parrillo