Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun),  his compositions as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists” (Actaeon), and his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny). Popular new music blog I Care if You Listen has critiqued Mr. Balliett’s work as “weird in the best possible way” (A Gnostic Passion) and “light-hearted yet dark…it had the audience laughing one minute and in tears the next…” (Pyramus and Thisbe). He is professor of baroque bass and violone at the Juilliard School since 2017. With a constant stream of commissions, a podcast produced with his twin brother, and nearly 200 performances per year, Mr. Balliett has been identified as an important and active voice for his generation.

Raised in central Massachusetts, Mr. Balliett graduated from Harvard with high honors in 2007 and from Juilliard in 2012, with a Master’s in Historical Performance. During this time he received compositional guidance from John Harbison, Elliot Gyger, and Philip Lasser. Mr. Balliett has received commissions from the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Center, the San Antonio Symphony, William Christie, Le Consort (Paris), TAK Ensemble, Metropolis Ensemble, SOLI San Antonio, and has written for some of New York’s finest singers, including Grammy winners Estelí Gomez and Dashon Burton, as well as Christopher Herbert, Molly Netter, Charlotte Mundy, Davone Tines, and Ariadne Greif. Notable projects include the octet Gawain’s Journey, premiered by St. Lawrence and JACK Quartets at the Spoleto (USA) Festival, the evening-length A Gnostic Passion, written with his twin brother and commissioned by CANTORI NYC, and an ongoing series of cantatas based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which have been commissioned from musicians across America and France. He has held composer-in-residence positions with the Spoleto Festival (USA), Bloomingdale School of Music (2016 ConEdison Exploring the Metropolis Resident Composer), the Lucerne Festival Academy, the Chelsea Music Festival, New Vintage Baroque, the Millennials, and the Colonials. His works have been performed at many major New York venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Juilliard, the Stone, SubCulture, (le) Poisson Rouge, Galapagos, ShapeshifterLab, and Spectrum. Other recent premieres have included a double bass concerto for Robert Nairn, Beast Fights, for Tanglewood Music Center (tenor, harp, and seven double basses), and a song cycle for Majel Connery and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. In May, 2019, the Cecilia Choir will present a new choral work with orchestra, 50 Trillion Molecular Geniuses, in Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Balliett has wide-ranging interests, many of which he shares with his twin brother Brad. The two had a long running weekly radio show on WQXR’s Q2, called The Brothers Balliett, and currently co-host a podcast on musical topics. In the past they curated a monthly series at various NYC venues, featuring many of the city’s luminaries. The brothers lecture together regularly for Juilliard and Carnegie Hall, most recently in a series of talks about Anton Bruckner to prepare for Carnegie Hall’s historic Bruckner cycle under Daniel Barenboim.

Mr. Balliett has given talks at the International Society of Double Bassists on historical performance, conducted many performances of his own works, and tirelessly composes poetry. Alongside his brother and composers Elliot Cole and Majel Connery, Mr. Balliett is a member of The Oracle Hysterical, a half-band-half-book-club that has presented genre-bending works all over America and Europe. Some of their most recent endeavors took them to Chicago, where they performed their album Hecuba with the Chicago Composers Orchestra, and Boston, where they performed as soloists with A Far Cry. Future Oracle Hysterical projects include performances with A Far Cry at the Stave Celebrity Series in Boston and a new commission for a collaboration with HUB New Music

Trained as a classical double bass player by Todd Seeber during his time at Harvard and by Rob Nairn as a student of historical performance at Juilliard, Mr. Balliett maintains an extremely active career as a performer. He has performed as principal or solo double bass with Les Arts Florissants, Ensemble Modern, the San Antonio Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, and many other ensembles. He has collaborated with musicians from all walks, ranging from baroque opera at William Christie’s French estate, to tours with pop band Pink Martini, to appearances with MacArthur fellow Steve Coleman at the Newport Jazz Festival. Deeply committed to period instrument performance, Mr. Balliett is a member of 17th century string band ACRONYM, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, and has appeared with all of the major northeaster American baroque ensembles. He performs regularly on the viola da gamba and the violone.