New York New Music Ensemble: Marcos Balter

Since 1976, the New York New Music Ensemble (NYNME) has commissioned, performed and recorded the important and emerging composers of our time. They have been the means by which many of these composers have become more known and appreciated. NYNME has been recognized and supported by significant American foundations, including the Jerome Foundation, Fromm Foundation at Harvard, Mary Flagler Cary Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and Koussevitzky Foundation, as well as the National Enodowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, among others. 

They have performed innumerable college residencies (Long Beach, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Pittsburgh, etc.), appeared at major festivals (Ravinia, Santa Fe, June in Buffalo, Pacific Rim, The Thailand International Composers Festival, etc.), and have recorded a huge discography of important chamber works. They have traveled to Europe, Asia, and South America to perform, teach, and record, and have branched out into theatre music (instrumentalists doubling as actors and singers) and adventuresome electronic and interactive new technologies.

Praised by the Chicago Tribune as “minutely crafted” and “utterly lovely,” The New York Times as “whimsical” and “surreal,” and The Washington Post as “dark and deeply poetic,” the music of composer Marcos Balter (b. 1974, Rio de Janeiro) is at once emotionally visceral and intellectually complex, primarily rooted in experimental manipulations of timbre and hyper-dramatization of live performance. Past honors include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award, fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and Tanglewood Music Center (Leonard Bernstein Fellow), and two Chamber Music America awards. He has also received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Chicago Symphony MusicNOW, and chamber choir The Crossing, as well as WNYC's Meet the Composer podcast, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, Holland-America Music Society, MacArthur Foundation, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Recent performances include those at Carnegie Hall, Köln Philharmonie, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, ArtLab at Harvard University, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, Teatro Amazonas, Sala São Paulo, Park Avenue Armory, Miller Theater, Villa Medici, Teatro de Madrid, Bâtiment de Forces Motrices de Genève, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. Recent festival appearances include theTanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ecstatic Music Festival, Acht Brücken, Aldeburgh Music Festival, Aspen, Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Neue Musik, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, and Banff Music Festival. Past collaborators include the rock band Deerhoof, DJ King Britt and Alarm Will Sound, yMusic and Paul Simon, Claire Chase and the San Francisco Symphony, the International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Orquestra Experimental da Amazonas Filarmonica, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, and the American Composers Orchestra. He has also worked with conductors Karina Canellakis, Susanna Malkki, Matthias Pintscher, and Steven Schick. 

His works are published by PSNY (Schott), and commercial recordings of his music are available through New Amsterdam Records, New Focus Recording, Parlour Tapes+, Oxingale Records, and Navona Records. He is the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, having previously held professorships at the University of California San Diego, Montclair State University, and Columbia College Chicago. He also held visiting professorships at the University of Pittsburgh, Northwestern University, and the University of Pennsylvania, and a pre-doctoral fellowship at Lawrence University. He currently lives in New York.