Doug Balliett

Enlarge

Doug Balliett

Doug Balliett is a prolific artist whose career has spanned classical performance, composition, rap, rock, spoken word, period performance and conducting. As a double bassist he has performed with Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Modern, the Ensemble Modern Orchestra, the San Antonio Symphony (principal and assistant principal) and the Metropolis Ensemble. 

He has earned fellowships at Tanglewood, where he performed as principal bass under James Levine, Aspen (principal under Jane Glover), National Orchestral Institute (principal under Andrew Litton) and the Lucerne Academy (principal under Boulez). He also maintains an active life as a recitalist, including live radio recitals, solo recitals throughout New York, and recital tours. Recent engagements have included double bass concerto performances at Alice Tully Hall and the ACFNY, commissions for new works from SOLI San Antonio and New York’s The Millenials, and tours with his band The Oracle Hysterical in Germany and Switzerland. 

Mr. Balliett’s compositions have been heard throughout the US, garnering several awards, including prizes in the Frederick Delius Competition, the Leonard Bernstein Scholarship, the Kirkland House Music Award and Harvard’s first annual Artist Development Grant. Recent compositional projects include a late-night events at the Chelsea Art Museum (as part of his continued residency at the Chelsea Music Festival) and the composer-in-residence Spotlight with The Oracle Hysterical at the Lucerne Festival, where he and his collaborators presented an evening of Grimm songs and a new hip-hopera based on Melville’s Billy Budd. Mr. Balliett graduated from Harvard in 2007 with high honors and is recently completed a master’s at The Juilliard School in Historical Performance.