Doug Balliett

Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. The Los Angeles Times recently wrote “Bassist Doug Balliett, who teaches a course on the Beatles at the Juilliard School and writes weekly cantatas for Sunday church services, as well as wacky pop operas, is in a class of his own.” The New York Times has described his compositions as “brainily bubble gum and lovable shaggy” (Rome is Falling), his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun), and his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny). Early Music America has called him “The Bach of the Bowery”. Doug has been professor of baroque bass and violone at The Juilliard School since 2017, and leads the Theotokos ensemble every Sunday at St. Mary’s church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He plays regularly with the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), Les Arts Florissants, Jupiter Ensemble, ACRONYM, Ruckus, Boston Early Music Festival, Experiential Orchestra, and other ensembles, baroque and modern. In August 2021 five of his Ovid Cantatas were filmed for Qwest TV with William Christie, Lea Desandre, Nick Scott, and members of Les Arts Florissants and the Juilliard School. For three years he and his twin brother hosted a weekly show dedicated to living composers on WQXR’s new music channel Q2. Recent performances of his work include Beast Fights at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra basses, and the annual New Year’s Eve performance of his opera Gawain and the Green Knight  (which was also recorded in 2024). Ongoing projects include a three-year cycle of mass-cantatas for all the Sundays and feasts of the Christian calendar, which premiere weekly as they are written, and a St. Mark Passion, which premieres at the 2024 Festival Dans Les Jardins de William Christie, in St. Juire-Champgillon, France. He is also busy completing a new opera, Rome is Falling!, which is in development with the American Modern Opera Company. A workshop performance will be given at the Clark Art Institute in August 2024, and the completed work premieres in Lincoln Center in July, 2025.