Retiree Returns to NDSU For New Musical Career

Mark Preston first graduated from the architecture program at NDSU 42 years ago.

FARGO, N.D.  – Mark Preston’s career as an architect has taken him around the world. He’s helped build great big things, and design fantastic buildings, like the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Thief River Fall. After his retirement, a single concert would bring a spark of urgency to start a new career.

“It was a sort of evolving process. I had sung here when I was an architect major graduating 42 years ago. I went to the Messiah performance a year ago and said ‘Oh, that’s what’s missing!'” said Mark Preston, a newly minted Freshman at NDSU.

As an architect, he never forgot music.

“There are all these musical ideas that have been kicking around for half a century and it’s time to see if there is really anything there.” said Mark.

His course load is tough, and it’s certainly not for everyone.

“I really do think it takes a special person to really go after that goal, because there’s nothing easy about it. It’s the same course work, it’s the same course load, and it’s the same performance schedule that twenty year olds are doing.” said Dr. Jo Ann Miller, the choral director at NDSU.

Dr. Miller is now Mark’s professor, but she used to be Mark’s classmate.

“The concert choir here has always been a really close knit group, so the freshmen become sort of projects for the seniors. I remember him. He was one our projects!” said Dr. Miller.

Dr. Miller has a new project, Mark, just like she did 42 years earlier, and he is rejoining that close knit family once again.

“The choir is the key thing for me, just like it was 40 plus years ago. Through some of the tougher academic times that’s what kept me going, and it’s happening again.” said Mark.

Mark isn’t the first architect to go through the choral program, and he probably won’t be the last.

“There are a surprising amount of similarities. They’re both studies in abstract. When you’re learning the technical parts of architecture, it’s similar to learning the technical parts of music. There is right and wrong, but yet it’s all subjective, and so one of my awakening moments has been ‘Oh you did it to yourself again, another career where things are all subjective.'” said Mark.

Mark may have thought his journey with NDSU ended 42 years ago, but now, it’s beginning all over again, and he’s excited to see where it will take him in the future.