Marcos Balter

Born in Rio de Janeiro, American-Brazilian composer Marcos Balter has created a body of work that moves fluidly across transdisciplinary and polystylistic realms. Praised by The New York Times as “spellbinding,” his music has received major honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Library of Congress, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, Chamber Music America, and the Leonard Bernstein Foundation. With an extensive discography to his name, he serves as the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University and Co-Director of the Composition Program at the Tanglewood Music Center.

At the Institute, Balter will develop Ogun, a work for percussionists, community participants, and live electronics rooted in Yorùbá cosmology and shaped by the deity of the same name as its structural and conceptual force. While its framework remains constant, each realization will evolve through site-responsive adaptations, locally sourced instruments, and collaborative exchange. In addition to composing the score, Balter will explore the creation of digital exoskeletons for acoustic instruments and conduct archival research to deepen the work’s technological, historical, and ethnographic dimensions.