Marcos Balter

Marcos Balter (born April 1, 1974) is a Brazilian contemporary classical music composer and the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University. Life and professional career Balter began his music studies at age five at the Conservatório Musical Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was admitted to the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música at age eleven. During his late teenage years, Balter studied privately with composer Almeida Prado and pianist Linda Bustani. He moved to the United States in 1995 to study music composition at Texas Christian University and later on at Northwestern University. His main composition teachers were Augusta Read Thomas, Amy Williams, and Jay Alan Yim. His works have been programmed by prominent music organizations including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra MusicNOW Series, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Philharmonie de Paris, San Francisco Symphony, Ojai Music Festival, New World Center, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, São Paulo Municipal Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and the Fromm Music Series at Harvard University. Past honors include the American Academy of Art