Mark Sedio

Mark Sedio (born November 16, 1954, in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American Lutheran church musician, organist, conductor, composer, educator, and hymnody specialist. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in music from Augsburg College in 1976 and a Master of Arts in choral conducting and literature from the University of Iowa in 1979. He later studied in the Master of Divinity program at Luther Seminary and pursued liturgical studies at St. John’s University.

Sedio’s career has combined parish music, theological education, teaching, composition, and performance. He served in music ministries in Iowa and Minnesota and was cantor at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis from 1984 to 2000 and at Central Lutheran Church from 2000 to 2021. He also served Luther Seminary in several musical capacities from 1982 to 2008, after which its faculty named him Musician Emeritus, and he has held teaching and conducting roles at Augsburg University and Gustavus Adolphus College. He continues to be associated with Augsburg as a university organist.

More than one hundred of Sedio’s works for organ, piano, choir, instruments, and congregational song have been published. His hymn tunes, texts, translations, and harmonizations appear in several denominational hymnals and worship supplements. He has presented hymn festivals, recitals, workshops, and clinics in North America and Europe and has been active in the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Sedio is an ordained deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. His tune EMMAUS, written for Michael Peterson’s “On the Day of Resurrection,” is one example of his work supporting contemporary congregational hymnody.