Author Profile

Andrew Balio

Andrew Balio has served as principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) since his invitation by Yuri Temirkanov in 2001, and is currently also serving as principal of the Oslo Philharmonic. He is former principal of the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico. Andrew's interest in orchestral affairs and challenges began while he was a music student, renting a room from the Boston Symphony'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. In Baltimore, he 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 founding of the Future Symphony Institute, which seeks to preserve and promote classical music. More recently, Andrew has been called upon again to present a new value strategy for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Plans are underway to unveil a newly conceived orchestral experience to the public in coordination with the BSO's upcoming centennial anniversary. Andrew remains active as a teacher, performer, committee member, and as an avid student of business, philosophy, and the challenges of our modern culture.

Articles by Andrew Balio

Oct 16, 2015 · Andrew Balio

Mastery, Not “Creativity,” Should Come First in Arts Education

At issue, of course, is the fact that the purpose of the traditional music education to prepare students to participate and collaborate in “the performance and analysis of European classical repertory” at its highest levels. The “broader reality” to which they subscribe is reflected in the modern tendency to see that emphasis as not only a slight to those who will fail to achieve those ends, but as a real offense to those who, like the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major, reject that purpose and the primacy of the European classical canon itself.

Oct 15, 2015 · Andrew Balio

Political Activism Comes to the American Conservatory

As we replace, for the sake of politics or expediency, the teachers who quietly loved and maintained the classical music tradition with those who have made a career of loudly condemning or refuting it, the discipline will be chipped away from the inside by a myriad of tiny careerists and ideologues happy to attack or cheapen the long and living tradition of Western classical music for the sake of a petty promotion or a hearty pat on the back.

Oct 14, 2015 · Andrew Balio

The Existential Crisis of the American Music School

Since at least the 1920s, America has done a fine job of nurturing its budding classical musicians within a large and well-funded network of conservatories that function either as independent institutions or else as colleges within larger universities. The grand venture of transplanting the pinnacle of European artistic achievement into the fertile soil of the New World has been a spectacular success. So can we say, then, that all is well in the world of higher music education on this side of the pond? Perhaps surprisingly, almost everyone you ask today will answer that question with a “no,” for all the wrong reasons.