Blake Allen (born 1988) is an American composer and viola player who is most known for writing the shards of an honor code junkie, music directing the 2019 revival of Over Here!, a frequent collaborator with Tina Burner, Insomnia at Carnegie Hall, writing the theme song for the talk show Doris Dear's Gurl Talk, and appearing on Shade: Queens of NYC.
Early life and education
Allen was born Blake Liahona Allen in Tucson, Arizona on July 21, 1988, the fourth of the four children of Marsha Allen (née Wilcox), a piano pedagogue, and San Allen, an engineer and Chief operating officer for Winchester Electronics. Shortly after Allen's birth, his family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. Allen was born with spherocytosis and had his spleen removed when he was four at St. Petersburg General Hospital. Allen's family then moved to Gainesville, Florida and ultimately El Paso, Texas, where Allen spent most of his formative years. Allen grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was in the viola sections of both the El Paso Symphony Orchestra and Las Cruces Symphony while attending Franklin High School.
Allen attended Brigham Young University where his friend Alan Taylor committed suicide, which led to the creation of his musical the shards of an honor code junkie, starring Tony Awards nominated actress Alison Fraser, Teal Wicks, Kristy Cates, Hannah Cruz, and Michael Lowney. BYU is where Allen also met lifelong friend, and frequent collaborator, Christopher Koelzer (pianist), who has premiered several of Allen's works as well as being featured on Sonatas and the shards of an honor code junkie, of which Koelzer is also a character.
Allen also attended CCM in 2010–2011 and graduated with his Masters in Music from New York University where he studied viola with Stephanie Baer, composition with Joseph Church, and songwriting with Billy Seidman and Alex Forbes. Allen is currently a PhD Candidate researching fractal geometry in the music of Ligeti. Allen has been Adjunct Faculty of Violin & Viola at NYU Steinhardt since 2012.
Career
As a performer, Allen has performed with the New York Pops, Little Orchestra, on Broadway in Tootsie (musical) and Misery (play), recordings for Philip Glass, and many Off-Broadway productions including several shows and scores by Michael Friedman, Dave Malloy's Drama Desk nominated Beardo, and Marisa Michelson's Tamar of the River. Allen has also been Tony Winner, Grammy and Emmy Nominee Rob Fisher's music assistant since 2012.
Allen was one of nine composers and lyricists involved with the Off-Broadway musical Folk Wandering, which premiered in March 2018.
In 2019, Allen won the 2019 BroadwayWorld Cabaret Award for Best Recurring Series for his "An Evening With... Series" as well as the award for Best Special Event (Solo) for Marti Gould Cummings's Marti & The Cummers while also being nominated for Best Musical Director and Best Independent Album, for his An Evening With..., Vol. 1 That same year, Allen also won the 2019 GLAM Award for Best Cabaret for Tina Burner's Witch Perfect at Alan Cumming's Club Cumming along with fellow performers Bootsie Lefaris and Tammy Spenks. In 2020, Allen won Best New Arrangement for Mack the Knife and was nominated for My Funny Valentine, Best Musical Director, and Best Recurring Series for An Evening With... Series. Allen also performed, to rave reviews, at Birdland with Lortel and Drama Desk Award winner Kuhoo Verma in early 2020.
Allen produced, music directed, and orchestrated the 2019 Off-Broadway, and first ever, revival of Over Here! at the Triad Theatre with Will Nunziata directing. Smashing box office records at the Triad Theatre, the show starred Tony Award Winner Debbie Gravitte, Jessica Hendy, Haley Swindal, and Nikka Graff Lanzarone. The revival was nominated for four BroadwayWorld Awards including Best Special Event and Best Musical Director, for Allen.
Allen also wrote a one-act play, Kelly [1955] based upon the Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter, which premiered at the Hudson Guild Theatre in March 2019 and also starred Jessica Hendy. The score was featured on Allen's Sonatas.
In 2020, Allen released his album Sonatas featuring music which premiered at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The album debuted at #1 on the iTunes Classical Chart, where it stayed for two weeks, and debuted at #4 on the Billboard charts Classical, where it stayed in the top 10 for two weeks. The album was recorded in one, 12-hour session, along with Allen's other album, "An Evening With...vol. 1", at Moon Recording, in Brooklyn, NYC.