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The American trumpeter, arranger and music teacher, Andrew Simon Balio, had interest in orchestral affairs and challenges while he was a music student, renting a room from the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s long-time chairman of the Players’ Committee and thereby gaining a unique and candid vantage point from which to consider the inner workings of a highly successful organization. His his first rigorous studies were at the age of 14 with former Oberlin Conservatory professor Gene Young, who was himself a close pupil of New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s and the Juilliard School’s William Vacchiano. The young Balio was unexpectedly introduced to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Adolph Herseth after a wind ensemble concert that Young had conducted, and this began a five-year association centered on intermittent lessons. During that time, Young’s methodical instruction gained entrance for Balio to the Tanglewood Music Festival when he was 15, and there he began much-needed studies in solfeggio with Roger Voisin (1981-1984). There he also met his primary and most influential mentor, Charles Schlueter, the newly installed principal of the Boston Symphony Orchestra after storied decades with the Cleveland Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra. Schlueter offered a place, and ultimately a full-scholarship, for him at New England Conservatory, which Balio briefly attended. While his conservatory studies were quite brief, his apprenticeship and friendship with Schlueter were lasting, and they provided him much experience at the master’s side and as a substitute with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Inspiration led in an unexpected direction when Andrew Balio suddenly set music aside, leaving the conservatory to enter a former Jesuit monastery run by a Hindu order, where he lived an ascetic life and practiced meditation for the next four years. It was here that he reconciled his love of music with his faith.
It was in fact the chance meeting at the monastery with Israel’s greatest Klezmer musician and former Israel Philharmonic Orchestra clarinetist, Giora Feidman, that serendipitously turned Andrew Balio towards joining his fellow musicians again. The philosophical Feidman exhorted Balio not to play just as an occasional hobbyist but to work towards being a musician full-time again - to dedicate himself to the art and its practice, and to even make music as
prayer - while throwing caution to the wind to take a more adventurous path beyond the usual concern of playing correctly. After leaving the monastery, his first job as he worked to reenter the music world was playing Principal Trumpet of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico, high up in the Sierra Nevadas under the infamous Enrique Batiz (1990-1993). Through no apparent connection to Feidman, five years later he became Principal Trumpet the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (1993-2001), having caught the attention of Zubin Mehta during the Shira Music by the Red Sea Festival under the direction of Lorin Maazel. He has been Principal Trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since his appointment to the position by Yuri Temirkanov in 2001. For the 2014-2015 season, he was also Principal Trumpet of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vasily Petrenko.
Andrew Balio has been a frequent soloist since his earliest days as a student, having made his debut at the age of 15 playing Haydn’s Concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony in his home state of Wisconsin. Over the years, he has appeared as soloist with various orchestras in Europe, the USA, South America, and Asia under the batons of noted conductors Zubin Mehta, Mario Venzago, Herbig, Temirkanov, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Lintu, Markus Stenz, Mark Elliot Bergman and Nicholas McGegan. His Carnegie Hall solo debut, an important milestone, came in 2013 in the company of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Maestro Constantine Orbelian.
In 2012, Naxos issued his first solo recording, the Weinberg Trumpet Concerto, with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, inaugurating a string of other recording projects planned to document his repertoire. He also was soloist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra's recent release of Scriabin’s Le Poéme de l’Extase. Most recently, in 2020, Delos Records produced "Soli Deo Gloria", Andrew Balio’s own transcriptions of music by J.S. Bach for organ, recorded at the University of Notre Dame. Soon to be released will be a second transcription recording, this time of the music of Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, and Schubert.
Andrew Balio is Lecturer at The Catholic University of America: Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art since 2009. As a teacher, he has traveled extensively, presenting master-classes throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. In the USA, most notably, he has recently been instructor for the National Orchestral Institute and Carnegie Hall’s NYO-USA project with Michael Tilson Thomas. As a lifelong meditator, the yogic breathing practice for meditation, pranayama has figured prominently in his integrated approach to the trumpet. This knowledge was an ideal addition to the breath-centric wisdom of Charles Schlueter and Adolph Herseth.
In Baltimore, Andrew Balio served on various orchestral committees before formulating his first strategic plan for the organization called “Repositioning the BSO” in 2003, collaborating with Robin-Marie Williams, strategic planner for NASA and the Department of Defense. His many years of watching, studying, and seeking out the experts culminates with his establishment of The Foundation for the Future of Classical Music Institute (April 2003), a nonprofit think tank which brings together the best minds and expertise from outside the arts to bear on the various challenges facing orchestras and classical music in the USA and worldwide. This new venture was born of the cumulative experience gained in the years at the monastery, in Mexico and Israel, through extensive worldwide touring, and during the tumultuous years that the Baltimore Symphony endured. The institute will bring together the best and brightest to focus on the challenges facing classical music worldwide and promote this beautiful artwork to an ever wider audience. See below the link to their website to learn more about their vision for the future of classical music. More recently, he has been called upon again to present a new value strategy for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and continues his ongoing efforts to fundamentally change the patron experience. He remains active as a teacher, performer, committee member, and as an avid student of business, philosophy, and the challenges of our modern culture. He is also serves on the board of trustees of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Andrew Balio is a Yamaha artist. |
