Nancy Maria Balach

Nancy Maria Balach is Chair and Professor of Music at the University of Mississippi. She is also Director of UM’s Institute for the Arts, CEO & Artistic Director of the Living Music Resource™, and a faculty member in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. She is a versatile soprano with vast performing experience across North America with opera companies and symphony orchestras; as well as being featured in leading roles on Albany Records, Newport Classic, New World Records, VOX Classics, and Operetta Archives.

​

She is an advocate of new music and promotes the work of underrepresented composers and performers, and has presented her research internationally. Balach is a 2022 Mississippi Arts Commission Artist Fellowship Recipient in the Solo Vocal Category, and a Fellow for the 2021-22 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program.

 

Balach’s extensive research and creative activity revealed that students needed more career development and entrepreneurship opportunities within the academy. In 2013, she launched the Living Music Resource™ at the University of Mississippi to mentor students in tailor-made, co-curricular experiences that are both interdisciplinary and engage off campus partners.

 

Service in both her field and community are important to Balach. She recently completed two terms as the Mississippi District Governor for the National Association of Teachers of Singing; over the past several years has been a featured artist on Link Up Concerts sponsored by NYC's Carnegie Hall for over 15,000 Mississippi students; and represented the City of Oxford in 2021 (Judges' Choice Award Winner) and 2022 (Invited Special Performance) at the “Dance Like the Stars” event that raises over $270,000 annually for the Boys and Girls Clubs of North Mississippi.