Mark McKnight started his career as a rock axeman and reached the final of Guitarist Magazine's Guitarist of the Year Competition 2000 at the age of 17. 

The following year he won the title of Ernie Ball Musician Guitarist of the Year, performing at Birmingham's NEC and being featured in the UK's widest selling guitar publication, Guitar Techniques. Mark received the Skidmore Jazz Studentship in 2002, which enabled him to study with musicians such as Dick Oatts, Curtis Fuller and Ed Shaughnessy.

This set him on the path to jazz, and he has never looked back. Mark recently returned to Ireland following three years on scholarship at Berklee College of Music, Boston.