Brad Balliett

Brad Balliett loves life as a musical omnivore, focusing equal parts of his career on composing, playing bassoon, and teaching artistry. He is a faculty member at the Peabody Institute, the Juilliard School and Musicambia (Sing Sing Correctional Facility).

Brad has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, Houston Symphony, New York City Ballet, and at the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Stellenbosch, Newport Jazz, and Lucerne Festivals. He is a member of Signal and Metropolis Ensemble, and has performed as a soloist with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra in South Africa.

As a composer, Brad has recently been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Notre Dame University, the Cecilia Chorus, The City of Tomorrow, and Metropolis Ensemble.

Brad is a member of the band/composer-collective Oracle Hysterical, with whom he has released several critically acclaimed albums. With his brother, Doug Balliett, Brad teaches history courses at Juilliard, gives lectures for Carnegie Hall, and has developed a series of Interactive Shakespeare Reading Parties.

As a teaching artist, Brad regularly leads workshops in prisons, schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters around the country. This season he is in residence in four maximum security prisons, helping incarcerated men write songs and compose pieces.

Raised in Westborough, Massachusetts, Brad graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, where he studied composition with John Harbison and Robert Levin, and holds an MM from Rice University. Brad is passionate about Shakespeare, Nabokov, sonnets, and birds.