Virko Baley

Virko Baley was born in Ukraine in 1938, but has spent his creative life in the United States and considers himself a citizen of the world. Multi-lingual and multi-disciplinary, he infuses his music with themes of contemporary and traditional motifs.

Mr. Baley joined UNLV’s Department of Music (as it was known then) in 1970 and during his tenure, in addition to founding the composition area, established an Annual Contemporary Music Festival (1971-1985), was honored with the first NEA music grant given to Southern Nevada, created the Las Vegas Chamber Players (1975-1995), was Music Director and Conductor of the Nevada Symphony (1980-1995), the Music director of NEXTET (2001-2016), and co-founded with Jorge Grossmann of N.E.O.N. (2007-2009, 2016), the annual composers’ conference, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Virko Baley is a Jacyk Fellow at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and Distinguished Professor of Music, Composer-in-Residence and co-director of NEON, an annual composers’ conference, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received a 2007 Grammy® Award as recording co-producer for TNC Recordings and the prestigious Academy Award in Music 2008 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Baley several times performed works of Vyacheslav Artyomov with his Nevada Symphony, including the concerto Pietà for cello solo and orchestra with the prominent soloist and Professor of the Moscow Conservatory, Maria Chaikovskaya.

In 1992 at the invitation of Artyomov, Baley recorded A Garland of Recitations with the best Russian soloists of that time and the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow State Philharmonic; a little earlier he recorded his own CD at the Melodiya Studios including Artyomov’s Concert of the 13 with pianist Mykola Suk and the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra.