Jon Balke

Jon Balke is a Norwegian pianist, composer and bandleader, born in 1955 in Furnes. He joined Arild Andersen's quartet as a teenager and played in Oslo 13 and Masqualero in the 1980s before turning to his own projects, among them the Magnetic North Orchestra, the percussion group Batagraf and Siwan, which brings Andalusian Arabic poetry and music together with European baroque. He has recorded mostly for ECM since the 1990s. Balke's first ECM appearance was on Andersen's Clouds in My Head (1975).