Balke started playing
classical piano but switched to
blues at 12, though he performs within several genres. At the age of 18 he joined
Arild Andersen's quartet. By the mid-1980s he worked on his own and would become one of Norway's leading jazz composers. He was active in the groups of
Radka Toneff and in the Afrofusion group E'olén before joining
Oslo 13 and
Masqualero in the early 1980s. From 1989 he focused on his own projects, such as
JøKleBa (with
Audun Kleive and
Per Jørgensen) and the
Magnetic North Orchestra for which he composed the commissioned work
Il Cenoneat to
Vossajazz 1992. Balke formed the percussion group
Batagraf in 2002, and created the concept work
Siwan with singer
Amina Alaoui in 2007. He is also the creator of a series of multimedia concerts at
Vossajazz festival, labeled
Ekstremjazz. The concerts involve various practitioners of extreme sports, such as
parachuting,
paragliding,
hanggliding, and
BMX biking. In 2016 he launched the solo piano concept Warp the use of live electronics accompanying the grand piano in live performances. == Awards and honors ==