Brad Balliett

Guest Musician

New York City-based musician Brad Balliett is in high demand as a composer and bassoonist.

Principal bassoon of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Brad is a founding member and former Artistic Director for the chamber music collective Decoda (Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall), and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York City Ballet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Signal, and Metropolis Ensemble, among others.

As a composer, Brad has witnessed and participated in premieres of his orchestral, chamber, choral, opera, and incidental music. Recent commissions have come from Carnegie Hall, Cecelia Chorus, Metropolis Ensemble, Notre Dame University, Sign & Sing, Experiential Orchestra, Cantori New York, and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra Wind Ensemble.

Brad is on faculty at the Peabody Institute, the Juilliard School (Evening Division), and Musicambia (at Sing Sing Correctional Facility), and regularly leads and participates in composition and song-writing workshops in prisons, schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters.

Brad graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, and holds an MM from Rice University. His hobbies include writing sonnets, running, and reading Shakespeare and Nabokov.