Evan Ziporyn embarks on a season of major musical events
Evan Ziporyn
Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
A rich confluence of events
Evan Ziporyn, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, and an award-winning composer and performer, has a lively musical calendar in any given year, one reflection of his innovative, exploratory work. But the 2010-11 season has emerged as an especially rich confluence of major musical events involving his compositions, performances, and works.
Highlights of the season
Highlights this fall include Boston and New York premieres of Ziporyn’s opera, “A House in Bali;” an evening at Carnegie Hall devoted to performances of Ziporyn’s compositions; and the US premiere of a new work by 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Reich. The spring of 2011 brings performances at major festivals in London, Hong Kong & Australia, and culminates back in Boston with the world premiere of Ziporyn's new "Tabla Concerto," with Sandeep Das and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.
Reinventing a journey to Bali, in life and opera
Boston Sunday Globe, 3 October 2010
Ziporyn, who has focused on cross-cultural works for 30 years, is reluctant to ascribe too much to the yearlong confluence of productions. He acknowledges "feelings of happiness and satisfaction,” but says he is only doing what he has always done, following his interest in music across cultures, listening, composing, and performing. He confesses to some elation that many others are now joining him in opening their ears.
An ethos of deep exploration
“Evan’s modesty is disarming,” says Dean Deborah Fitzgerald, “But make no mistake: Evan Ziporyn is an extraordinarily talented musician, composer, teacher, and collaborator who celebrates the musical distinctiveness within cultures as well as the commonalities across cultures. His work challenges the listener to rethink traditional categories of sound and apprehension, and inspires us to expand our understanding of what music can do in our hearts and heads. MIT is extremely fortunate to have someone who fits the experimental, rigorous ethos of the Institute so beautifully.”
"Evan's work challenges the listener to rethink traditional categories
of sound and apprehension, and inspires us to expand our
understanding of what music can do in our hearts and heads."
Deborah Fitzgerald, Kenan Sahin Dean,
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Inspiration in Bali
Ziporyn says that one of the most inspiring moments in his life occurred last summer (in 2009), during the process of pulling the parts of “A House in Bali” together, as he was introducing musicians of different cultures to each other. He remembers a hot tropical day in a small brick hall in Bali where he had gathered the Balinese and American musicians.
“We were on the second floor above a market, the windows thrown open--with the sounds of cars, merchants, and barking dogs. I had the Balinese musicians play for Bang on a Can. I had Bang on a Can play for the Balinese. Everyone’s jaws just dropped. People heard the unfamiliar and the correspondent, the similar in different sensibilities. It was a very emotional moment. It was what I’ve always wanted and worked for—to share ideas, to share sounds; to make something beautiful and moving.” •
Forthcoming Events
Le Poisson Rouge, September 27, New York City – 7:30 pm
“Typical Music”—Ziporyn’s piano trio plus other chamber works
Piano Recital, Vicky Chow, October 4, MIT Killian Hall, Cambridge – 8 pm
“The Art of the Groove,” new music for solo piano, including Ziporyn’s “In Bounds:” presented as part of Bang on a Can In Residence at MIT
A House in Bali, October, October 8 – 9, Boston – 7:30 pm
The opera, "A House in Bali," fully staged, premieres in Boston at the Majestic Theater, a rare opportunity for large-scale experimental performance in Boston’s venerable theater district. Based on the memoirs of Colin McPhee, with Bang on a Can All-stars, Gamelan Salukat, Peter Tantsits, Dewa Alit, Kadek Dewi Aryani, directed by MIT Theater Arts Professor Jay Scheib.
A House in Bali, October, October 14-16, New York – 7:30 pm
The following week, Ziporyn’s opera moves to the Gilman Opera House at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, part of BAM’s much anticipated Next Wave Festival. BAM is “the” venue for boundary-crossing performance.
Bang on a Can | In Residence at MIT, October and April
The Boston performance of “A House in Bali” & Vicky Chow’s recital are the first events in Bang on a Can’s three-year residency at MIT, featuring numerous public concerts, individual and group recitals, demonstrations and class visits, and lectures and master classes.
Making Music, Carnegie Hall, New York, October 30 – 7:30 pm
A composer portrait of Evan Ziporyn presented by Carnegie Hall and hosted by Jeremy Geffen. The program spans 20 years of work, from solo works for clarinet and piano to the New York premiere of Bayu Sabda Idep for gamelan and strings. Featuring clarinetist David Krakauer, pianist Vicki Chow, Brad Lubman and Signal and MIT’s own Gamelan Galak Tika.
The Music Center at Strathmore, Maryland, November 11
Bang on a Can All-stars (featuring Ziporyn) perform the US premiere of Steve Reich's 2x5, as well as his Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet; Ziporyn also performs Reich’s New York Counterpoint for multi-tracked clarinet
Boston Modern Orchestra Project at MIT, February (date TBD)
The opening event of MIT’s 150th Anniversary Festival of the Arts featuring works by Ziporyn and other MIT faculty composers.
Perth Australia and Hong Kong, Spring 2011
Bang on a Can / Kronos / Galak Tika Marathon at MIT, April 15, 2011
Also part of the 150th Festival, Bang on a Can brings its signature marathon concert to MIT in collaboration with the legendary Kronos Quartet, joining forces with Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man and MIT’s own Chamber Chorus and Gamelan Galak Tika. Highlights include Terry Riley’s “The Cusp of Magic,” Christine Southworth’s “SuperCollider,” Ziporyn’s “Aradhana” and—in live performance by all the ensembles—Brian Eno’s seminal “Music for Airports."
Carnegie Hall, Music by Steve Reich, April 30, 2011
Ziporyn joins Bang on a Can, 8th Blackbird, Kronos Quartet, So Percussion, & Wilco’s Glenn Kotche in a celebration of the music of Steve Reich
Reverberations / The Music of Steve Reich, Barbican Centre, London, May 7, 2011
A celebration of Reich’s 75th birthday, with music by Reich performed by Bang on a Can, as well as music influenced by Reich, such as Ziporyn’s “Be-in”, performed by Ziporyn with the Calder Quartet
Carnegie Hall Video Interview
In advance of his Zankel Hall Making Music concert on October 30, 2010, the Carnegie Hall team asked Ziporyn to give a video interview about his musical inspiration, development, and direction. In this first installation from the Carnegie Hall interview Ziporyn talks about how he first began to engage with Balinese music and culture, and how it has influenced his musical direction.
[video:674]
About Evan Ziporyn
Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music
MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
From Lincoln Center to Balinese temples, from loft spaces to international festivals, composer/performer Evan Ziporyn has traveled the globe in search of new musical possibilities. His work is informed by his twenty-year involvement with Balinese gamelan, which has ranged from intensive study of traditional music to the creation of a series of groundbreaking works for gamelan and western instruments. His compositions for conventional forces have been performed by the Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, Nederlands Blazer Ensemble, master p'ipaist Wu Man, Maya Beiser and Steven Schick, Arden Trio, California EAR Unit, pianist Sarah Cahill, and Orkest de Volharding. As a bass clarinetist, he has developed a distinctive set of extended techniques which he has used in his own solo works, as well as new works by [others]. He has been associated with the Bang On A Can Festival since its founding in 1987, appearing as composer, soloist, and ensemble leader...
Born in Chicago in 1959, Ziporyn received degrees from Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley.... Upon completing a Fullbright Fellowship in Indonesia, he became Musical Coordinator of San Francisco's Gamelan Sekar Jaya in 1988...Moving to Boston in 1990 to take a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993.
As a performer and recording artist, Ziporyn has worked with a range of master musicians from numerous musical cultures... Venues have included New York's Lincoln Center, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Southbank Centre, and the Bali Arts Festival... He has received grants from the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Program, Meet the Composer, the New England Foundation for the Arts, NEA/Arts International, ASCAP, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. — biographical note © Cantaloupe Music •
Links
Boston Globe, feature article, 3 October 2010
MIT Music section | Ziporyn biography
BAM | Ziporyn video + interview
Carnegie Hall | Sound Insights series
School News | Carnegie Hall video interview with Evan Ziporyn
School News | American premiere of Ziporyn opera
School News | NYT calls Bang on a Can "exhilarating"
School News | World premiere of "Super Collider"
MIT News | Ziporyn interview | "A House in Bali"
Photo credits: top: Kevin Yatarola; middle row: Christine Southworth,
Jeff Lieberman; bottom row, left: Christine Southworth
Video: Carnegie Hall
Interview: Lynda Morgenroth
Editor, Art Director: Emily Hiestand