Jared and Ruth Marie, married in 2006, met playing chamber music while students at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Currently based in the Seattle area they regularly perform as the Ballance Duo, and with New York pianist Doleen Hood as the Brandywine Trio. Passionate about performing great music, especially forgotten gems, their repertoire ranges from J.S. Bach to Erwin Schulhoff, Béla Bartók to Rebecca Clarke. Performing standard duo works as well as their own transcriptions, they have delighted audiences from the West Coast to the East Coast. Dedicated to audience building and music education, the Ballance Duo presents artistic, thematic programs, and converses with their audiences to make music come alive for listeners.
In 2011-2012 Jared was a member of the music faculty at Samford University, where he taught cello, chamber music, and music theory. Formerly on faculty at Oakwood University, he grew up in Oregon studying violin, piano, and cello, later adding viola and viola da gamba to his repertoire at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His major cello teachers have included Richard Aaron, Desmond Hoebig, and Alan Harris. In addition to earning a doctorate in cello performance and literature, Jared holds a masters in music theory pedagogy and the Juilliard School’s Dalcroze teaching certificate. Formerly on the chamber music faculty of Hochstein School of Music and Dance in Rochester, New York, he has given Dalcroze workshops at many music schools including the Eastman School of Music, Hochstein, and ENCORE School for Strings, where he also taught cello. Jared is a board member of the Dalcroze Society of Amerca's Northwest Chapter. Jared organized and performed in a concert of the twelve solo cello pieces written for Paul Sacher’s 75th birthday, and he has performed Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with members of the Cleveland Orchestra. His performance of Klaus Roy’s Serenade for Solo Cello at the composer’s 80th birthday concert was praised by the Cleveland Plain Dealer for its “poetic and dramatic panache”. Jared has given numerous lecture recitals on music written by composers who were censured, imprisoned, or killed during the Nazi Holocaust. He has done Suzuki teacher training with Tanya Carey, Gilda Barston, Dr. Beth Cantrell, Jean Dexter, and Edmund Sprunger.
Ruth Marie served on the faculty of Suzuki Talent Education Program Birmingham and was a member of the Samford Quartet. She taught at both Samford University and University of Alabama - Birmingham. She has held previous appointments at Hochstein School of Music and Dance, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Broadway School of Music and the Arts in Cleveland, Ohio, Credo Chamber Music, and Austin Chamber Music Center Summer Workshop, as well as running her own Talent Education program in Huntsville, Alabama. Ruth Marie studied violin with Leonard Posner, Linda Cerone, David Russell, and Paul Kantor among others, and received the Cleveland Institute of Music Jerome Gross Prize in Violin in 2001. In addition she has done Suzuki teacher training with Ronda Cole, Edmund Sprunger, Alice Joy Lewis, Patricia D’Ercole, Cathryn Lee, Carol Dallinger, Nancy Jackson, and Christie Felsing, and has been published in the American Suzuki Journal. In 2011, she earned the Suzuki Association of the Americas Certificate of Achievement. She has performed as a concerto soloist with the Austin Symphony, the Austin Civic Orchestra, and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra among others, as well as performing as a member of the Alaska Quartet in several states. In the Spring of 2011, she performed all six of J.S. Bach’s works for Solo Violin.