Charles Halka’s compositions have been performed in the United States, Mexico, Russia, and Lithuania, and upcoming and past performances include premieres by counter)induction (New York), ONIX Ensamble (Mexico), the Boston New Music Initiative, the chamber choir Jauna Muzika (Lithuania), the Armonas Trio (Lithuania), In Spe (Lithuania), Pictures on Silence (Baltimore), New Dischord (Chattanooga), and the California State University Northridge Symphony. As a U.S. Fulbright grantee, he spent a year in Vilnius, Lithuania researching Lithuanian music and writing an opera in collaboration with director and librettist Marija Simona Šimulynaitė. The opera, Julius, received its premiere on March 23, 2010 in Vilnius. In March of this year, Round and Round, based on a work by the great American music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, was premiered at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress.
Halka has studied at conservatories in the United States, Russia, and Lithuania and holds degrees in both piano and composition from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied piano with Brian Ganz and composition with Michael Hersch. He is now completing coursework towards a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Shepherd School of Music, where he has studied with Richard Lavenda and Kurt Stallmann.
Current and upcoming projects include a companion piece to L’histoire du soldat for the Lithuanian septet In Spe (Ričardas Šumila, conductor), a gamelan-inspired solo piano work for pianist Linda Angkasa, and a concerto for flute and orchestra for Mexican flautist Alejandro Escuer.
