Evan Ziporyn

Evan Ziporyn was named a 2007 USA Walker Fellow by United States Artists, an arts advocacy foundation dedicated to the support and promotion of America's top living artists.

The Ornate Zither and the Nomad Flute (2005) 15' – for solo soprano and wind ensemble

As a clarinetist, Ziporyn recorded the definitive version of Steve Reich's multi-clarinet New York Counterpoint in 1996, sharing in that ensemble's Grammy Award in 1998. In 2001 his solo clarinet CD, This is Not A Clarinet, made Top Ten lists across the country. His compositions have been commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Maya Beiser, So Percussion, Wu Man, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded two CDs, Frog's Eye (2006) and Big Grenadilla/Mumbai (2012). His honors include awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (2011), The Herb Alpert Foundation (2011), USA Artists Walker Fellowship (2007), MIT's Kepes Prize (2006), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Fellowship (2004), as well as commissions from Meet the Composer/Commissioning Music USA and the Rockefeller MAP Fund. Recordings of his works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Naxos, Innova, and CRI.

Ziporyn is the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as director of MIT's Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST). At MIT he directs Gamelan Galak Tika, an ensemble he founded in 1993, a group of 30 MIT students, staff and community members, devoted to the study and performance of new works for Balinese Gamelan.

In 1992 Ziporyn founded the Bang on a Can All Stars, with whom he performed and recorded until 2012. He also was a member of Steve Reich and Musicians, with whom he shared a 1998 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. He is currently a member of the Eviyan Trio, with Czech violinist/vocalist Iva Bittovà and American guitarist Gyan Riley.

Earlier that year, he performed a clarinet solo at the First Bang on a Can Marathon in New York. His involvement with BOAC continued for 25 years: in 1992 he co-founded the Bang on a Can All-stars (Musical America's 2005 Ensemble of the Year), with whom he toured the globe and premiered over 100 commissioned works, collaborating with Nik Bartsch, Iva Bittova, Don Byron, Ornette Coleman, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Thurston Moore, Terry Riley and Tan Dun. He co-produced their seminal 1996 recording of Brian Eno's Music for Airports, as well as their 2012 Big Beautiful Dark & Scary (2012). He left the group in the fall of that year to form Eviyan with Iva Bittová and Gyan Riley, with whom he now concertizes and records regularly. In the fall of 2013 he founded the www.criticalband.org, a group devoted to the music of the late British composer Steve Martland.

Ziporyn joined the MIT faculty in 1990, founding Gamelan Galak Tika there in 1993, and beginning a series of groundbreaking compositions for gamelan & western instruments. These include three evening-length works, 2001's ShadowBang, 2004's Oedipus Rex at the American Repertory Theater (Robert Woodruff, director), and 2009's A House in Bali, an opera which joins western singers with Balinese traditional performers, and the All-stars with a full gamelan. It received its world premiere in Bali that summer and its New York premiere at BAM Next Wave in October 2010.

Ziporyn studied at Eastman, Yale & UC Berkeley with Joseph Schwantner, Martin Bresnick, & Gerard Grisey. He first traveled to Bali in 1981, studying with Madé Lebah, Colin McPhee's 1930s musical informant. He returned on a Fulbright in 1987.

Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, December 14, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.