Duluth, Minnesota based percussionist and composer Zack Baltich creates with a simple purpose: to inspire curiosity in the creation of sound; to instigate empathy in the form of emotional resonance; and to bring satisfaction that comes from long-form music weaving to a clear landing point. Past projects have been supported by the American Composer’s Forum, Cedar Cultural Center, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Prairie Ronde Artist Residency.
Notable work includes: 2016’s “ingress:passage” for marimba, drums, and bass clarinet, the focal point of which was to broaden the marimba’s palette by running certain bars through guitar effects pedals. For 2017’s “Cavernous”he composed/recorded four pieces in cave-like environments throughout Minnesota including a frozen 1920s-era iron ore mine and a 200 foot tall disused grain silo. In 2020, Zack spent 5 weeks writing and recording music for solo percussion and electronics in a 400,000 square foot, former paper mill, resulting in “Afraid of the Dark Now,”his fifth album.
Through these projects Zack has developed skills in finding symbiotic relationships in concepts and elements that seem disparate: urban and rural, classical and popular, remote sites and amplified music. Learning to think about physical space as an extension of the instrument, along with experimentation and an estuary of genres has helped him find his own way to communicate with empathy and conviction.