Creating music is at the heart of Marcos Balter’s identity. “I’m a composer,” he said on a recent visit, part of his tenure as the current Distinguished Composer in Residence at the Frost School of Music’s composition program. “It’s the closest thing to a full definition of who I am.”
Helping younger composers to arrive at that confident characterization is also integral to him. “Teaching is really important to me for reasons that have to do with my understanding of what it is to be a citizen of the world,” said Balter, the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, whose artistry has taken him from a working-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro to being an in-demand artist at the heights of the classical music world. “I have a moral obligation to share my knowledge with others. Teaching at an advanced institution allows me to be in direct conversation with people who want to embrace what I do. These are people who want to live in music.”
Balter’s own life in music has been enormously fulfilling. He was admitted to the Brazilian Conservatory of Music at the age of 11 and moved to the U.S. in 1995 to study at Texas Christian University and Northwestern University in Chicago. His works have been programmed by numerous major music organizations, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Miami’s New World Symphony, and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Critics have described his music, which ranges from electroacoustic works to solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces, as having “a fiercely imaginative palette.”
Professor Charles Mason, chair of the Department of Theory and Composition, said that Balter’s achievements, reputation, and professional relationships were a major factor in asking him to join the decade-old composer residency program, which has included such renowned artists as Anthony Davis and Tania Leon.
But other considerations are also crucial. Originality is one. So is an artistic point of view different from that of the Frost School composition faculty. “Do they have a unique voice?” Mason said. “Do they bring something to the table that we aren’t necessarily bringing?”
Another driver is whether they will help Frost School students develop their own unique voice. “All the composers in residence fit our philosophy, which is not, ‘I’m going to teach you my style of music,’ but, ‘What is your style, and how can I help you realize it better?’” Mason said.
Balter, who has taught at multiple universities, is in tune with that thinking. “I agree with Chuck that that is the essence of what the Frost School does and also the essence of what I do,” he said. His sessions with students have focused, not on technique and theory, but on what has shaped them, what inspires them, and what programs, ensembles, and institutions could help them fulfill their dreams.
“Acquiring knowledge is just the beginning,” Balter said. “We do a lot of talking about who they are, not what they know or what they do. I don’t think it’s possible to train an artist in a way that’s divorced from their artistic identity.”
“I have to be part music analyst, part shrink, part curious listener, and part fellow composer in solidarity with whatever struggles they are going through. You have to lead and be led by them.”
The Frost School’s composer in residence program is designed to provide students with an in-depth experience that extends far beyond a single master class and concert. Composers visit six times throughout the year-long residency, which runs from January to December, teaching private lessons to juniors, seniors, and graduate students each time.
Since its launch in 2015, the program has featured some of the most renowned and influential composers in contemporary music. They include Augusta Read Thomas, one of Balter’s primary teachers; George Lewis, winner of the MacArthur "genius" award and a Guggenheim fellowship; Tania Leon, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021 while in residence at the Frost School; Anthony Davis, famed for his operas “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” and “The Central Park Five,” for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020; the composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher; and Chen Yi, who preceded Balter. He will be followed next semester by Andrew Norman.
Balter has many connections to the Frost School. He is close with former professor Valerie Coleman, a member of the Juilliard School faculty and director of the Woodwind Quintet Workshop at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, where Balter is composition program coordinator of the Tanglewood Music Center. He knows Svet Stoyanov, the professor who leads the Frost School’s percussion program, as well as composition faculty member Juraj Kojs. He is close with alumnus Matthew Evan Taylor, M.M. ’11 and D.M.A. ’15, and an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and has given lessons to Kevin Day, D.M.A. ’24, one of the Frost School’s top recent composition graduates.
Balter also praised Mason and his wife, associate professor Dorothy Hindman. “Besides being fantastic composers themselves, they are the most kind and generous people,” he said. “I see the community they’ve built here, and the open-mindedness they put forth.”
“I’ve known a lot of people who are connected to this school, but I’ve never done anything myself with the Frost School. So it’s good to be here and experience that firsthand.”
