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“More successful (and substantial) was Bayolo's own "Chamber Symphony." Full of lush ideas and a kind of fierce grandeur, it unfolded with subtle, driving power -- a work worth hearing again.” - Stephen Brookes
Armando Bayolo
Audacious. Piquant. Lyrical
Armando Bayolo is a composer whose music ranges from the audacious to the playful to the beautifully lyrical. His belief that all art is communication is manifested by creating music that reflects the world in which we live: life’s joy and grief, triumphs and challenges, and the social and political trials and triumphs we all face on a daily basis find a voice in his work. His Cancionero de luto is a lyrical meditation on death and mourning full of the “high degree of poetic expressiveness” (Music Web International); his A Play of Shadows, for saxophone quartet, is representative of the combination of “the audacity of popular music, the verve-filled rhythmic language of Latin America, and the pugnacity of postmodern classicism” (Sequenza21); and Last Breaths, a setting of the last words of black men murdered by police, gives voice to their rage with the kind of “fierce grandeur” and “driving power” (The Washington Post) for which his music has been praised.
Armando fell in love with music at age four, when he first heard an orchestra in the score to Star Wars. As a teenager he asked his mother (a pianist) for lessons in order to start a synth pop band. But, he was soon bitten by the classical bug when his piano teacher assigned him “Fur Elise” and introduced him to Beethoven. When, at age 14, he lost his father suddenly to heart disease, he found solace in music studies. His musical world opened up dramatically when, at 16, he attended the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, where he staid to complete his high school studies with an intense focus on music. He went on to receive degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Yale University, and the University of Michigan. In 2005, he founded Great Noise Ensemble in Washington, DC, and led the ensemble as Artistic Director for 15 years, presenting contemporary music to audiences throughout the DC region and the rest of the U.S.
He also served as Curator for New Music at the Atlas Performing Arts Center from 2011-2014, creating a series that the Washington Post hailed as “a key destination for anyone interested in new American music.”
Armando’s recent works include Dystopian Moods, commissioned for the Meridian Arts Ensemble by Bowling Green State University for their 50th new music festival; Cancionero de luto, co-commissioned by Yale University and SOLI Chamber Ensemble premiered as part of the 2025 Yale Festival of Arts and Ideas; On Becoming Ungathered, a clarinet concerto commissioned for virtuoso Eric Schultz by Coastal Carolina University; and the two act opera, Che, about guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
In recent seasons he has been featured at the Festival di due mondi in Spoletto, Italy, the Yale Festival of Arts and Ideas, the Festival Interamericano de las Artes, residencies at Yale, Washington and Lee, Coastal Carolina, George Mason and Louisiana State Universities, and the World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb, Croatia.
Armando continues curating and directing concerts, festivals and series throughout the country and his work is performed globally at important and influential venues. He is currently associate conductor of the Illinois Modern Ensemble at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he is also on the faculty for Music Theory, Composition and Production, and his education work reflects his deep commitment to the unification of all of America’s classical usic creators and performers, regardless of racial background, gender, and social status. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and two cats.
Press photos
Photo by Michelle Smith Hamilton
Photo by Michelle Smith Hamilton
Photo by Eric Schultz