View all Class in the spotlight ArticlesSubscribe to the Class in the spotlight RSS Feed View all This Week ArtcilesSubscribe to This Week RSS Feed View all The Arts ArticlesSubscribe to The Arts RSS Feed View all Class in the Spotlight ArticlesSubscribe to Class in the Spotlight RSS Feed View all Sports Features ArticlesSubscribe to the Sports Features RSS Feed View all Professor of the Week ArticlesSubscribe to the Professor of the Week RSS Feed
the campous chronicle features footer
The Campus Chronicle Artifact Header
Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
The Campus Chronicle Artifact Footer

Trivial Pursuits

Trivial Pursuits
 
Giuliano practices and preaches

Mark Giuliano
Photo by Dane Sponberg 
Mark Giuliano, a media and performing arts professor who also performs folk rock and preaches, relaxes in his studio at his Wilmington Island home Sept. 25.

By Monique Bos
Published: Friday, September 30, 2005

Mark Giuliano keeps busy. Not only does he teach communication courses for the Savannah College of Art and Design media and performing arts department, but he also is a pastor for a local church and writes, records and performs folk rock.

Oddly enough, it was because his father also was a pastor that Giuliano acquired his first guitar.

“Someone had stolen guitars, and later he came to our church and asked my dad to return them for him. He said he was coming clean,” Giuliano explained. However, the people from whom the guitars were stolen had already collected the insurance money and didn’t want them back. “So my dad brought home one of the guitars. I learned every guitarist’s first song, which is ‘Smoke on the Water.’”

Growing up in Windsor, Ontario, he developed his musical repertoire listening to radio stations from across the border. “I got into music in part because I grew up soaking in Detroit radio,” he said.

He continued to pursue his interest in music throughout high school and college.

“The most fun band I ever played in was a band called The Topics,” he said. “We were punk back when punk was brand new, around 1978-79. It was a blast. I was a drummer back then, but when you go off to college it’s hard to lug your drums with you.”

He earned an undergraduate degree in humanities, then went on to receive a master’s degree in theology and a D.Min. However, he also continued to pursue his interest in music, releasing his first album, “The Vision,” in the early 1990s. One of the songs, “I Hear You Calling,” became a top-10 hit in northern Ontario.

“It’s pretty cool waking up in the morning and hearing a radio station saying, ‘That was David Bowie, Mark Giuliano and Queen,’” he quipped.

More recently, he said, “The big news for me is a song I wrote, recorded and released about two weeks after 9/11, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder.’”

He distributed the single without the usual tracking mechanism, which lets artists know how much airplay their songs are receiving.

“I just wanted to get the song out there,” he said. “Radio stations responded even without the tracking device. It got a lot of airplay up and down the East Coast.”

The song also garnered a commendation from President George W. Bush and a letter of thanks from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“That’s the highlight of the music career in the past couple of years,” he said.

He plans to return to the studio over winter break to record a new album. He will record in Nashville, and hopes to later receive mastering assistance from George Graves, who worked on his last CD and also mastered U2’s “The Joshua Tree.”

Although Giuliano performed at a First Friday for Folk Music in September, he said he hasn’t played many shows recently. He hopes to change that when his new album comes out.

“I’d like to just play. I love playing and connecting with the audience,” he said. “A lot of the stuff I’m playing now tends to be interactive — the audience sings along, sings harmony or there’s humor.”

Giuliano said his trio of careers — college professor, pastor and musician — provides “interesting contrasts” and overlaps.

“I like to think of speech and public speaking in a broad sense, so I encourage people to do a variety of communications — for example, musicians can perform” in his courses, he said.

Some members of the SCAD community also attend Montgomery Presbyterian, the church at which he is a pastor.

“The college has been pretty cool about it,” he said. “There are members of the church who go to SCAD or teach at SCAD.”

Many of the people who attend the church also support his musical career, he said. “They usually come out and cheer me on.”