Balance Campaign will present our Feature Concert as Ensemble-In-Residence at the University of Maryland College Park’s School of Music. Program details coming soon.
Celebrate the new music being created at the UMD School of Music! In collaboration with Ensemble-In-Residence, Balance Campaign, this program will include original compositions by UMD School of Music student composers. New music recitals range from solo to chamber works and often include electroacoustic performances and multimedia presentations. Program details TBA.
Celebrate the new music being created at the UMD School of Music! In collaboration with Ensemble-In-Residence, Balance Campaign, this program will include original compositions by UMD School of Music student composers. New music recitals range from solo to chamber works and often include electroacoustic performances and multimedia presentations. Program details TBA.
Balance Campaign returns to Little City Concerts to open their 2024-2025 season with Waking the Witch.
Waking the Witch is a one-act immersive chamber opera, composed by Ashi Day, for solo countertenor and Pierrot ensemble. The opera explores human vulnerability to absurd beliefs and the danger that ensues when authority figures display black-and-white thinking, fear of those with less power, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories. The audience is placed in the middle of the action as the accused witch, physically surrounded with a single-minded interrogator and animal familiars of questionable reality (played by the treble instruments). Using text derived from both historical witchfinders and modern-day statesmen with eerily similar messaging, listeners are tossed between the wild ride of a spooky story, the frustration of navigating the impossible logic of power mixed with bizarre moral panic, and the dangerous reality that these things did, and in many ways still do, happen.
CREATIVE TEAM
Ashi Day, composer and librettist
Min Sang Kim, countertenor
Lee Cromwell, director
Balance Campaign, Pierrot ensemble
The development of Waking the Witch received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Balance Campaign returns to Rome School of Music as Ensemble-in-Residence to premiere seven new works by student composers for pierrot ensemble and voice.
Balance Campaign is the 2024 Women Composers Festival of Hartford Ensemble-in-Residence and will premiere a new work for pierrot ensemble by Composer-in-Residence, Kirstin Volness.
The Festival includes:
Scholarly Symposium – presentations about women composers and their works
International Score Call – a competition for new compositions scored for the instrumentation of the Ensemble-in-Residence
Music Marathon – a full day of performances of works by women composers
Emerging Composers Workshop – composers at the beginning of their careers are mentored by a professional composer as they compose a work for the Ensemble-in-Residence, culminating in a public reading
Balance Campaign presents Texture, Terrain, Transformation, a program of new pieces that explore our relationship with nature. For this concert we're partnering with EcoAction Arlington. EcoAction Arlington educates, advocates, and acts to create a sustainable community by improving our natural environment, encouraging environmentally-friendly behaviors, ensuring environmental justice, and addressing the climate crisis. With programs like Energy Masters, the Tree Canopy Equity Program, and a variety of school programs, EcoAction Arlington offers many ways to engage with the planet on a hyperlocal level.
Please join Westminster Hall and our guests, Balance Campaign, this Spring at our first season back since 2019!
Cellist Erin Murphy Snedecor and special guest violist Kimia Hesabi perform a program of duo and solo works.
This concert is free and open to the public.
Please join Westminster Hall and our guests, Balance Campaign, this Spring at our first season back since 2019!
Flutist, Meghan Shanley Alger and Pianist, Elizabeth G. Hill perform a program of duo and solo works.
This concert is free and open to the public.
Join us and our host, Ted Goldman, as we present Shifting Landscapes.
DETAILS
Columbia Heights House Concerts
Friday, March 31, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Door opens at 7:00 pm
You are strongly encouraged to bring a bottle of wine, and to leave a donation for the performers in advance via Ticket Tailor or onsite.
https://buytickets.at/balancecampaign/880028
Please join Westminster Hall and our guests, Balance Campaign, this Spring at our first season back since 2019!
If you feel anything like we do, then your wanderlust has been growing since the beginning of lockdown in 2020. Although we are carefully moving toward a sense of normalcy, rising gas prices and inflation still make it difficult to take time off and find a change of scenery. So Balance Campaign is bringing an interactive program of enchanting pieces by living composers to you! Their music will carry you away to the dreamworlds and fresh perspectives we have all been longing for.
Program:
Hannah Kendall - Vera
Jonathan Bailey Holland - His House is Not of This Land
Elena Ruehr - Lucy
Vivian Fung- Shifting Landscapes
Geoff Sheil - Blink
Kati Agócs- Immutable Dreams
This concert is free and open to the public.
Early Silent Films from the Library of Congress with New Music by Catholic University Composers.
Scores performed by Balance Campaign, Department of Music Theory, History, and Composition's ensemble in residence.
Ticket information coming soon!
Early Silent Films from the Library of Congress with New Music by Catholic University Composers.
Scores performed by Balance Campaign, Department of Music Theory, History, and Composition's ensemble in residence.
Free and open to the public, prior reservations recommended.
Balance Campaign is releasing their recording of ANIMAL by Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, their first-ever commission and studio recording!
ANIMAL traces the evolutionary development of an imaginary living organism, starting from a single pulsating de-tuned unison blip (mono-cellular) through a constantly shifting tableau from increasingly fantastical fungi and amphibious reptiles all the way to the giant stomping footsteps of an intelligent being walking upright. But just as the music starts to soar into the highest register of the ensemble, the humanoid suddenly transforms into a grotesque monstrosity in a final furious march that leads to it's own extinction.
WAKING THE WITCH is a one-act, immersive chamber opera in which you, the audience, assume the role of an accused witch, ready to be interrogated by a Witchfinder from Early Modern Europe. The text is derived from the words of historical Witchfinders as well as modern-day figures whose rhetoric is eerily similar. Possibly real animal familiars lurk in the background. Will you resist? Give in? How long can you walk?
In this workshop performance, audiences will help the artistic team develop this work from concept into a full production. Audiences get an exclusive first glimpse of the opera in draft form with limited staging and will have an opportunity to provide feedback after the event. This step is vital in discovering how full productions could be possible in the future. Thank you for helping us bring this opera to life!
WITCHFINDER: Min Sang Kim
ENSEMBLE and ANIMAL FAMILIARS: Balance Campaign
COMPOSER AND LIBRETTIST: Ashi Day
DIRECTOR: Lee Cromwell
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Kareem Mack
The development of Waking the Witch received funding from
OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants program, supported by
the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
WAKING THE WITCH is a one-act, immersive chamber opera in which you, the audience, assume the role of an accused witch, ready to be interrogated by a Witchfinder from Early Modern Europe. The text is derived from the words of historical Witchfinders as well as modern-day figures whose rhetoric is eerily similar. Possibly real animal familiars lurk in the background. Will you resist? Give in? How long can you walk?
In this workshop performance, audiences will help the artistic team develop this work from concept into a full production. Audiences get an exclusive first glimpse of the opera in draft form with limited staging and will have an opportunity to provide feedback after the event. This step is vital in discovering how full productions could be possible in the future. Thank you for helping us bring this opera to life!
WITCHFINDER: Min Sang Kim
ENSEMBLE and ANIMAL FAMILIARS: Balance Campaign
COMPOSER AND LIBRETTIST: Ashi Day
DIRECTOR: Lee Cromwell
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Kareem Mack
The development of Waking the Witch received funding from
OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grants program, supported by
the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Earl and Darielle Linehan Concert Hall
We are excited to be back at UMBC working with composition students to premiere their pieces! The first half of our program will feature these premieres and the second half will feature:
Alyssa Weinberg | Refracted
Christopher Cerrone | South Catalina
$15 general admission
$10 seniors
$5 students
Free for UMBC music majors and music faculty/staff
AMAZE features two days of exciting performances of works written by women and gender-marginalized composers.
Day 1 of the festival at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington, DC will feature over a dozen regional musical groups and artists, including District5, Atlantic Reed Consort, Whistling Hens, Balance Campaign, Titilayo Ayangade, and more. It will also include the East Coast premiere of composer Alexandra Gardner’snew work, “Sanctuary of Joy,” for violin and organ commissioned by Boulanger Initiative.
Program:
Viet Cuong - Fine Lines
Missy Mazzoli - Still Life With Avalanche
Charles Peck - Kindling
Nathan Lincoln de Cusatis - ANIMAL
Concert is free and open to the public.
Program:
Jonathan Bailey Holland - His House is Not of this Land
Missy Mazzoli - Still Life With Avalanche
Alyssa Weinberg - Refracted
Jennifer Higdon - wissahickon poeTrees
Tickets are $30. Performances are limited capacity and food and beverage service is not currently available. Additionally, all guests must show proof of Covid-19 vaccination, or a negative PCR test, and wear masks while inside the venue. No food and drink will be served.
Program:
Margaret Brouwer - Lonely Lake
Charles Peck - Kindling
Annika K. Socolofsky - a sense of who
Nathan Lincoln de Cusatis - ANIMAL
Balance Campaign is thrilled to present our #WhyNotWednesdays video performance series. Check back every Wednesday through September 23 for virtual performances of some of our favorite new music solos, duos, and maybe a full ensemble teaser!
“La bicicleta de cristal” by Angélica Negrón, ft. Emory Hensley, percussion
Olmstead: II. The Ramble by Robert Olmstead, ft. Sandy Choi, violin, and Elizabeth Hill, piano
Portraits of Langston: I. Prelude: Helen Keller & III. Le Grand Duc Mambo, by Valerie Coleman, ft. Meghan Shanley, flute, and Emily Robinson, clarinet
“The Strange Highway” by Gity Razaz, ft. Erin Snedecor, cello
ANIMAL by Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis (excerpt), Balance Campaign
Balance Campaign is honored to be featured at the Intersections Festival 2020 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center!
Our program “Rebirth” highlights new musical works that are grounded in the hope of new beginnings within the framework of an increasingly complicated and fragmented world. Works by Sarah Kirkland Snider, Judd Greenstein, and Daniel Kellogg. Artist talkback and Q&A to follow the concert.
General Admission is $25. Tickets available for purchase online.
DESTRUCTION | A concert experience exploring the loss of nature, spirit, and humanity featuring works by Whitney George, Robert Honstein, and featuring the D.C. premiere of ANIMAL, by Fordham University Faculty Nathan Lincoln de Cusatis, commissioned by Balance Campaign. Program will include visual reflections on the current socio-political environment.
DESTRUCTION | A concert experience exploring the loss of nature, spirit, and humanity featuring works by Whitney George, Robert Honstein, and featuring ANIMAL, by Fordham University Faculty Nathan Lincoln de Cusatis, commissioned by Balance Campaign. Program will include visual reflections on the current socio-political environment.
DESTRUCTION | A concert experience in collaboration with SoundMind, exploring the loss of nature, spirit, and humanity featuring works by Whitney George, Robert Honstein, and the WORLD PREMIERE of ANIMAL, by Nathan Lincoln de Cusatis, commissioned by Balance Campaign. Program will include audio-visual reflections on the current socio-political environment.
We were accepted as residents at the beautiful Avaloch Farm Music Institute this summer! We are excited to work with composer Nathan Lincoln de Cusatis on our newly commissioned piece in such an idyllic setting.
As we enter our second year of featuring an Ensemble in Residence, District New Music Coalition is extremely excited to partner with local chamber group Balance Campaign. Join us on June 14 for an eclectic program of music by living composers with ties to the greater DC area:
Blink - Geoff Sheil
Murmurs - CJ Escobar
The Way of Ideas - Alexandra Gardner
Get Up - Stephen Gorbos
wissahickon poeTrees - Jennifer Higdon
Admission is free; $10 suggested donation.
As we enter our second year of featuring an Ensemble in Residence, District New Music Coalition is extremely excited to partner with local chamber group Balance Campaign. Join us on May 17 for an eclectic program of music by living composers with ties to the greater DC area:
Blink - Geoff Sheil
Murmurs - CJ Escobar
The Way of Ideas - Alexandra Gardner
Get Up - Stephen Gorbos
wissahickon poeTrees - Jennifer Higdon
Admission is free; $10 suggested donation.
Balance Campaign returns to University of Maryland - Baltimore County performing a program of works by women composers. They also premiere works of two student composers, Collin David and Logan Perkins, on this program.
Mirage - Shulamit Ran
Variance - Collin David
Three Episodes for Six Instruments - Logan Perkins
Lonely Lake - Margaret Brouwer
wissahickon poeTrees - Jennifer Higdon
As we enter our second year of featuring an Ensemble in Residence, District New Music Coalition is extremely excited to partner with local chamber group Balance Campaign. Join us at DC's Colony Club on April 6 for an eclectic program of music by living composers with ties to the greater DC area:
Diviraag - Asha Srinivasan
The Way of Ideas - Alexandra Gardner
Doorways - Anna Meadors
Showpiece - Dave Molk
blood & its endless screaming or laughing or whatever people do when their village burns - Inti Figgis-vizueta
Get Up - Steve Gorbos
“The wine that one drinks with one’s eyes is poured down in waves by the moon at night…” This performance will explore the enduring legacy of the Pierrot-- a pantomime character that has been the inspiration for numerous works of literature, film, music, and art since its debut in 17th century Italy. Blurring the line between comedy and tragedy, this multimedia performance will provide an opportunity to discover why the Pierrot-- stubbornly hopeful in the face of constant misfortune -- has continued to resonate with people for over 400 years.
Doors will open at 6pm, with the first 200 guests admitted. No tickets required-- entry is free with a $10 suggested donation. This performance contains themes that may be unsuitable for those under 13.
