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Cristina Ballatori & Kevin T. Chance
Biography Cristina Ballatori & Kevin T. Chance
Cristina Ballatori
has performed across the United States, Europe, England, and Latin America as a recitalist, soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. Performance highlights include concerts in such venues as the Festivales Internacionales de Flautistas in Lima, Peru, World Flutes Festival in Mendoza, Argentina, Atelier Concert Series in Paris, France, and artist residencies in Spain, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
An active chamber musician, Ballatori is a member of the Semplice Duo with pianist Kevin Chance, and the Lyrique Quintet. Described by critics as “delightful performers” whose “music making was effortless and sparkling,” the Semplice Duo was formed in 2000 with the goal of exposing a wide variety of audiences to the less frequently performed chamber music for flute and piano. Winners of the Notes at 9,000 Emerging Artist Series Competition in Colorado, the Semplice Duo has performed recitals and educational outreach concerts throughout the United States and abroad. Their debut album, “Night Surrendering to Dawn” features an engaging and eclectic program of works for flute and piano by 21st Century composers Valerie Coleman, Amanda Harberg, and Samuel Zyman, including two world-premiere recordings of works by Christian Ellenwood; it will be released by Centaur Records in 2025. Passionate about the performance of new music and music by women, Ballatori has commissioned and premiered works by Valerie Coleman, Cherise Liter, and Alexandra Molnar-Suhajda. One of her upcoming projects includes a new commissioned work by Reena Esmail as a member of the Flute New Music Consortium.
Ballatori regularly appears as a guest artist and has been a featured performer, clinician, and adjudicator at many festivals and conferences including those of the National Flute Association, Music Teachers National Association, Texas Music Educators Association, Texas Band Directors Association, and Florida Flute Association among many others. In 2023-2024, she was a featured guest artist for the Rochester Flute Association, Wisconsin Flute Festival, and the Southwestern Oklahoma State Flute Day. A passionate advocate for music education, Dr. Ballatori has presented workshops for the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation's “Live! Music Now” program, and given master classes at universities and public schools throughout the United States and in Latin America.
A sought-after and dedicated teacher, Ballatori joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas in Fall 2024 as Assistant Professor of Flute and flutist with the Lyrique Quintet. She previously served as Associate Professor of Flute at both the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). At UTRGV, Ballatori was one of fifteen tenure track professors within the sixteen University of Texas System schools to receive the Regents’ Outstanding Award, a $25,000 award recognizing extraordinary classroom performance and innovation in instruction. Her students have been named winners and finalists in local, state, regional, and national competitions, including those sponsored by the National Flute Association and Texas Association of Music Schools, and have been accepted into top summer festivals and graduate programs. Under Ballatori's direction, the UTRGV Flute Choir and Flautarra Ensemble enjoyed the university's first invitations to appear as featured performers at the National Flute Association Convention, Texas Music Educators Association Convention, and Texas Flute Festival. In 2022, the UW-W Flute Ensemble received the university’s first invitation to perform at the National Flute Association Convention in over thirty years.
A winner of the National Flute Association’s Graduate Research Competition, Ballatori’s doctoral thesis, “Suite Paysanne Hongroise for Flute and Piano by Béla Bartók/Arr. Paul Arma: A Performer’s Guide,” was recognized for its outstanding contribution to flute research. Her articles have been published in American Music Teacher, Flute Talk, and Flutist Quarterly. Ballatori has served as co-director of the Frontera Chamber Music Society, a non-profit organization she co-founded, and as co-director and co-founder of the South Texas Flute & Clarinet Festival. An active member of the National Flute Association, she currently serves as Assistant Program Chair of the 2025 Convention in Atlanta. She previously served as a member of the NFA’s Board of Directors, Diversity & Inclusion Committee, Pedagogy Committee, Youth Engagement Committee, and as coordinator of the High School Soloist Competition.
Ballatori completed the Doctor of Musical Arts in Flute Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The recipient of a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship, she received a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England where she studied with Peter Lloyd, retired principal flutist of the London Symphony Orchestra. She earned performance degrees at Louisiana State University (M.M.) and George Mason University (B.M.). Her major teachers include Alexa Still, Katherine Kemler, Judith Lapple, and Diane Smith. She is a Burkart Artist.
Kevin T. Chance
Named Teacher of the Year by the Alabama Music Teachers Association and Music Educator of the Year by the Arts Council of Tuscaloosa, pianist Kevin T. Chance has been hailed as “a superlative musician” playing “with musical conviction and muscularity.” He has performed throughout the United States and abroad as both soloist and collaborator. Recent engagements include performances at Carnegie Hall as well as concerto appearances with Bernstein's Age of Anxiety and Rachamninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini with the Huxford Symphony Orchestra, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the University of Alabama Wind Ensemble, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Athens Chorale in Georgia, and Gerald Finzi’s Eclogue. In March 2016, he also appeared with the Tuscaloosa Symphony in a performance of Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals. Recital engagements have taken him throughout the U.S. with recent appearances at the American Matthay Association Festivals, the University of Oklahoma, the Louisiana Piano Series International, and the Albion College International Piano Festival. He has also been presented in performances by the Mobile Opera, the Mississippi Opera, Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, the University of Texas at Brownsville, the University of South Carolina, Columbus State University, Auburn University, Millsaps College, the University of North Dakota, the Saratoga Arts Fest, and Bucknell University. Dr. Chance was a prizewinner of several regional and national competitions including the National Society of Arts and Letters Career Awards Competition, Music Teachers National Association Competitions (MTNA), and the Brevard Music Center Concerto Competition.
Dr. Chance is a member of the Semplice Duo with flutist Cristina Ballatori. In August 2004, they were named the winners of the Notes at 9,000 Emerging Artist Series Competition in Colorado. Past seasons have taken them to Texas, Colorado, New York, and Louisiana, and they were selected as artist fellows for the 2005 Hampden-Sydney Music Festival in Virginia, where they returned for a series of performances in 2008. They frequently perform in recital on the “Live from Hochstein” series, which are broadcast live on WXXI radio in Rochester, NY, and in 2014, they made their European debut in Paris.
A sought-after teacher, Dr. Chance maintains a prize-winning studio, and he was recently named a Leadership Board Faculty Fellow by the Universtiy of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences. His students are frequently named winners and finalists in local, state, regional, and national competitions, including the 2009 Music Teachers National Association’s National Competition Finals in Atlanta. He currently serves on the faculties of several summer festivals including the New Orleans Piano Institute. In demand as a clinician and adjudicator, he regularly presents workshops and lecture-performances on repertoire and pedagogy throughout the country, and he has served as a guest artist and clinician for the Michigan, Mississippi, and Alabama state music teacher conferences. Additionally, Dr. Chance has presented at the 2023, 2019, 2016, and 2008 Music Teachers National Association Conferences. He is a Past President of the Alabama Music Teachers Association and is a past board member of the Music Teachers National Association serving as Director of the Southern Division and later Vice President. Kevin currently serves as the President-Elect of Music Teachers National Association and is a past president of the American Matthay Association.
Serving as Associate Professor of Piano and Chair of the Gloria Narramore Moody Piano Area at the University of Alabama, Dr. Chance is a former faculty member at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music where he was awarded the Jerald C. Graue Fellowship for academic excellence. An alumnus of the Aspen Music Festival, he holds the Master of Music degree from Louisiana State University and graduated magna cum laude from Birmingham-Southern College. His teachers have included Barry Snyder, Constance Knox Carroll, Ann Schein, Anne Koscielny, Herbert Stessin, William DeVan and Betty Sue Shepherd.
