Mark Scearce (born October 9, 1960) is an American composer known for his musical settings of more than 200 texts by forty poets—from art songs to operas to works for chorus and orchestra.

Scearce’s catalogue of music compositions totals over a thousand performances of sixty works, including seven commercial recordings on the Delos, Warner Bros, Capstone, Centaur, Albany, and Equilibrium labels.

[6] Endymion’s Sleep, Anima Mundi, and This Thread were borne from Scearce’s association with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra and its Music Director Paul Gambill.

He has written four operas including the full-evening Falling Angel which The Wall Street Journal termed "a noirish thriller skillfully distilled from the original [with] an engaging score borrowing imaginatively from numerous genres".

Scearce retired after twenty years at NC State in Spring 2024 after a decade running their Music Department and another in their famed College of Design.

[18] He has had residencies at Ucross, MacDowell, and Yaddo artist colonies, as well as Ernest Block, Atlantic Center, June in Buffalo, and Wellesley Composers Conferences early in his career.

Ammons) 1997 — American Triptych (Jane Kenyon) 2002 — This Thread (Toni Morrison) 2004 — Str Qt Nr 2 (Hart Crane) 2009 — Bright Star (Keats) 2012 — Missa Memoriae (Catullus) 2013 — Symmetries & Asymmetries (W.H.