Carnegie Mellon University

School of Music

Where artistry and innovation share center stage

Noah Bendix-Balgley,

July 30, 2013

PSO CONCERTMASTER NOAH BENDIX-BALGLEY JOINS CARNEGIE MELLON SCHOOL OF MUSIC FACULTY

PITTSBURGH—Noah Bendix-Balgley, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) concertmaster since 2011, will join the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music faculty this fall as an artist lecturer and will coach several student string quartets.

A passionate and experienced chamber musician, Bendix-Balgley was the first violinist of the Athlos String Quartet from 2008 until 2011 before joining the PSO. The Athlos Quartet won a special prize at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Competition in Berlin and performed throughout Europe. In 2011, he performed on a North American tour with the Miro String Quartet.

He has performed with artists including Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Gary Hoffman, Lars Vogt, Ralph Kirshbaum, and percussionist Colin Currie, and has appeared at many festivals in Europe and North America, including the Verbier Festival, the Sarasota Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, and “Chamber Music Connects the World” in Kronberg, Germany.

Bendix-Balgley has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras in Europe and in the United States, including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris), the Orchestre National de Belgique (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels), the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (USA), Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie (Belgium), the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana (Italy) and the Asheville Symphony (USA). The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named his Pittsburgh debut recital in January 2012 the Best Classical Concert of 2012.

A laureate of the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, he won third prize and a special prize for creativity at the 2008 Long-Thibaud International Competition in Paris. Bendix-Balgley won first prize at the Vibrarte International Music Competition in Paris, and was awarded first prize and a special prize for best Bach interpretation at the 14th International Violin Competition “Andrea Postacchini” in Fermo, Italy.

Bendix-Balgley received his bachelor’s degree in music with highest distinction from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he was a student of Professor Mauricio Fuks. He earned his postgraduate Meisterklasse diploma for violin in 2008 from Hochschulefür Musik und Theater Munich, where he studied with Professor Christoph Poppen.

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About Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Music:Founded in 1912, Carnegie Mellon’s School of Music (http://music.cmu.edu.) educates outstanding, intellectually gifted musicians through excellence in performance, creativity, scholarship and pedagogy. The School of Music offers undergraduate degrees in instrumental and vocal performance, composition and keyboard performance. Graduate degrees are offered in performance, composition, conducting, and music education. The school also offers a variety of highly acclaimed non-degree programs, such as the Performance Residency Program, the Artist Diploma Program, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Piano Pedagogy, Advanced Flute Studies, Orff Schulwerk and Music Education programs. Since its founding, the School of Music has graduated more than 3,200 students, who can be found performing, composing, conducting, teaching and contributing to the music field worldwide. Today, many alumni regularly appear in symphony orchestras, on Broadway, and in opera houses around the world. Additionally, the School of Music presents more than 250 events annually, many of which are free and open to the public.

About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 12,000 students in the university’s seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon has campuses in Pittsburgh, Pa., California’s Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university recently completed “Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University,” exceeding its $1 billion goal to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements. The campaign closed June 30, 2013.


CONTACT:

Dana Casto / Director of Marketing & Communications / School of Music / 412-268-4921 / dcasto@cmu.edu
Pam Wigley / Director, Media Relations / College of Fine Arts / 412-268-1047 / pwigley@andrew.cmu.edu


Photo credit: Rob Davidson