Composer / Conductor / Clarinetist

E V A N Z I P O R Y N

New Release: Art Decade: Evan Ziporyn & ContaQt Reimagine the music of Bowie, Fripp, Eno, and Budd

PRE-ORDER NOW. AVAILABLE OCTOBER 17, 2025

Biography

Composer/conductor/clarinetist Evan Ziporyn's music has taken him from Balinese temples to concert halls around the world.

He has composed for and collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Brooklyn Rider, Maya Beiser, Ethel, Anna Sofie Von Otter, the American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Iva Bittova, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Wu Man, and Bang on a Can. In 2017, his arrangements were featured on Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s The Vietnam War, and on Silkroad’s Grammy-winning album Sing Me Home.

Most recently, his orchestral reimagining of David Bowie's final album, Blackstar, was recently released on Islandia Music, featuring Ziporyn conducting his own Ambient Orchestra with Maya Beiser, cello soloist. Since its 2017 premiere, Ziporyn has conducted the work in Boston, Barcelona, New York Central Park Summerstage, Australia's Adelaide Fringe Festival, Strathmore Hall, and numerous other national and international venues. 2019 also saw the world premieres of two new works, the drum concerto Impulse Control for the Bowling Green New Music Festival, and the gamelan/string hybrid Air=Water for Philadelphia's Network for New Music. Other recent works include the collaborative immersive installation Arachnodrone/Spider's Canvas with Christine Southworth, which premiered at Paris' Palais de Tokyo in 2018, and The Demon in the Diagram with visual artist Matthew Ritchie and choreographer Hope Mohr.

Ziporyn studied at Eastman School of Music, Yale, and UC Berkeley with Joseph Schwantner, Martin Bresnick, and Gerard Grisey. He received a Fulbright in 1987, founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993, and composed a series of groundbreaking compositions for gamelan and western instruments, as well as evening-length works such as 2001's ShadowBang, 2004's Oedipus Rex (Robert Woodruff, director), and 2009’s A House in Bali, which was featured at BAM Next Wave in October 2010. He released two albums of his orchestral works with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, featuring tabla master Sandeep Das as soloist.

From 1992-2012 he served as music director, producer, and composer/arranger for the Bang on a Can Allstars, winning Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year award in 2005. He has also recorded and toured with Paul Simon (You're the One) and the Steve Reich Ensemble, sharing in the latter's 1998 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance. In 2012 he formed the Eviyan Trio with Iva Bittova and Gyan Riley, with whom he recorded two albums. He has also released numerous albums on Cantaloupe Music, New World, CRI, Airplane Ears, and other labels. Other honors include a USA Artist Fellowship, the Goddard Lieberson Prize from the American Academy, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, and commissions from Carnegie Hall, Kronos Quartet, Rockefeller Multi-Arts Program, and Meet the Composer. As a conductor recent appearances include LA Opera (Keeril Makan’s Persona), Hamburg Elbsphilharmonie (Julia Wolfe/Bill Morrison’s Fuel), the Barcelona Symphony, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. At MIT he is Distinguished Professor of Music, Director of the Center for Art, Science and Technology, and currently Guest Director of the MIT Symphony Orchestra.

Projects

Bowie is already symphonic. But last night another color was added to his music, a rich and adventurous density that easily and forcefully connected high and popular culture.

Javier Blanquez, El Mundo

Evan Ziporyn founded THE AMBIENT ORCHESTRA in January 2016 as a People’s Orchestra for the 21st Century. Our repertoire is the 'hidden-in-plain-sight' recorded masterworks of ambient music, electronica, progressive rock, fusion jazz, and world music. We seek to transform this treasure trove of beloved recorded repertoire into large-ensemble, live human performance, to help audiences connect to the intensity - and necessity - of the orchestral idiom.
www.ambientorchestra.com

Ziporyn has built his career from the outset around ideals of cultural cross-pollination, in his own work as a composer for both Western instruments and Balinese gamelan, and in his active performing life as a clarinetist.

Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe

Exuberant blast of metal fireworks.

Anne Midgette, New York Times

May 1, 2020 8 pm
MIT Kresge Auditorium
Cambridge, MA 02139
Gamelan Galak Tika performs traditional Balinese music and dance plus Evan Ziporyn's classic Kekembagnan

This cross-cultural ensemble combines the lattice-like beauty of traditional Balinese gamelan with 21st century composition and technology, finding common ground and opening audiences' ears to both. Celebrating our 20th season in residence at MIT, Galak Tika has established an international reputation for its captivating, genre-bending performances, traversing from classical Balinese dance to previously unimagined new possibilities. We've premiered new works for gamelan and western instruments by Terry Riley, Glenn Kotche, Evan Ziporyn, Christine Southworth, Dewa Ketut Alit, and others, and have collaborated in performance with the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, Signal, the New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Robert Black, and numerous dance and theater ensembles in the US and in Indonesia. We've performed to large crowds and rave reviews at such venues as Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Southern Exposure Festival, several Bang on a Can Marathons, Carnegie Hall's Making Music series, the Bali International Arts Festival, and at dozens of universities and venues in New England and the eastern seaboard of the US. Our recordings are available on New World, New Albion, and Airplane Ears Music.

Spider’s Canvas is truly the most collaborative project I’ve ever been involved in. It’s not just interdisciplinary but literally interspecies. The real ‘first mover’ was the spider herself. In performance, all four humans have an equal effect on everything the audience sees and hears.

Evan Ziporyn

MIT News: Spider web music: An inspiring harmony of art and science
The Washington Post: ‘Spider’s Canvas/Arachnodrone’: A web of otherworldly music

Spider’s Canvas / Arachnodrone is an immersive, synesthestic performance/installation that allows audience members to experience ‘life in the web.’ A co-creation of composer and MIT CAST Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn, composer/visual artist Christine Southworth, sound artist Ian Hattwick, spider researcher Isabelle Su, and based closely on a tent-web made by a South American cyrtophora citricola spider, the work is not simplyinterdisciplinary, but quite literally an interspecies collaboration.

Spider’s Canvas was inspired and commissioned by visual artist Tomas Saraceno, and was premiered in November as part of Saraceno’s acclaimed exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

UPCOMING

9.19.25
SINGLE RELEASE - Robert Fripp's RED from ART DECADE: EVAN ZIPORYN & CONTAQT REIMAGINE THE MUSIC OF BOWIE, FRIPP, ENO, AND BUDD
BUY NOW

9.21.25 3pm
St Mark’s in the Bowery, 131 East 10th Street, New York, NY Gamelan Yowana Sari performs EZ's aERIFoRm kITE for gamelan, guitar and bass, as part of the Village Trip Festival

10.1.25 12pm
MIT Chapel ORSEL presents EZ's More Sonic Holigrams weaving together live clarinet, bass clarinet, wind synth, effects boxes and loop pedals into a multidimensional, immersive and meditative auditory journey.

10.10.25 8pm
Western University von Kuster Hall, London, Ontario Art Decade: Evan Ziporyn and ContaQt with Contemporary Music Studio - Conductor/composer/clarinetist Evan Ziporyn and ContaQt present music of Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, David Bowie and Howard Budd arranged for chamber ensemble. ContaQt is a hybrid chamber ensemble composed of cellist Mary-Katherine Finch, percussionist Jerry Pergolesi, pianist Allison Wiebe*, violinist Sarah Fraser Raff and guitarist Andrew Noseworthy who is a Western Music alumnus. Students from Western’s Contemporary Music Studio will join during the first half of the concert.

10.11.25 7:30pm
1279 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M6K 1L6, Canada - Art Decade: Evan Ziporyn and ContaQt present music of Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, David Bowie and Howard Budd arranged for chamber ensemble. ContaQt is a hybrid chamber ensemble composed of cellist Mary-Katherine Finch, percussionist Jerry Pergolesi, pianist Allison Wiebe*, violinist Sarah Fraser Raff and guitarist Andrew Noseworthy.

10.17.25
ALBUM RELEASE - ART DECADE: EVAN ZIPORYN & CONTAQT REIMAGINE THE MUSIC OF BOWIE, FRIPP, ENO, AND BUDD
PRE-ORDER NOW

12.3.25 12pm
MIT Chapel - World Premiere of Christine Southworth's Snowflake Sonifications in the beautiful Eero Saarinen designed MIT Chapel, hosted by MIT Office of Religious, Spiritual and Ethical Life. This immersive multimedia reflection and interactive environment that incorporates a sonic backdrop using the non-anthropocentric and momentary structures of snowflakes at different levels of magnification to create sounds and songs reflecting the actual geometries of snow crystals. Inside the audio/visual landscape of snowflakes, Southworth will perform electric guitar and Evan Ziporyn EWI.

1.10.26 8pm
MIT Thomas Tull Concert Hall BOWIE CELLO SYMPHONIC AURA: BLACKSTAR VISUALIZED
Maya Beiser, cello
Evan Ziporyn, conductor/arranger
Ambient Orchestra

2025
2.22.25
MIT Thomas Tull Concert Hall - Wild Surroundings: Kinetic in Concert
WORLD PREMIERE of EZ's In Light of Sound 3.24.25
Radius Ensemble performs EZ's Be-In at MIT Tull Concert Hall in The Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building

4.12.25
Feather Leaf Inn, St. Croix, USVI - EZ & Ryan Meyer perform their arrangments of tropical classics from Brazil, the Caribbean and South Africa in benefit concert for R.E.A.L. Cruzan Cats.

4.24.25
TASHKENT - EZ's Be-In composed in the 1990s and orchestrated by the Omnibus Ensemble for a symphony orchestra especially for the project with musicians of the Uspensky School. The world premiere of the orchestral version will take place in the Great Hall of the Uspensky School in Tashkent, Uzbekistan at 18:00.

5.11.25 2pm
MIT Tull Concert Hall in The Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building - A powerful reunion of Gamelan Galak Tika across three decades, featuring EZ’s explosive Tire Fire with Fire Works - live responsive visuals by Alex Rigopulos & Eran Egozy, and the Boston premiere of Darta’s stunning Sari ing Kerta. Limited Seating - FREE TICKETS

5.23.25 7:30pm
Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston 3400 Main Street, 77002
Kinetic Ensemble closes out its milestone 10th season with a program tracing and celebrating its Houston roots. The evening features no less than three premieres: a new work by composer Mason Bynes (who hails from Sugar Land, and is now based in New York) that expands upon her school-age hobby of composing musical telegrams for friends and classmates; the Texas premiere of In Light of Sound by genre-defying artist Evan Ziporyn, written for Kinetic’s residency at MIT earlier this Spring; and a short fanfare by founding member, violinist-composer Giancarlo Latta. The program concludes with Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, which is a nod to Kinetic’s first performance in 2015 that featured this work. Celebrate 10 years of collaborative music-making and “thoughtful, incisive programming” (Arts and Culture Texas) with Kinetic!

6.13-14.25
REDCAT 631 W 2ND ST, LOS ANGELES, CA 90012 - PARTCH Ensemble—the Grammy Award-winning ensemble specializing in the music of the iconoclastic composer Harry Partch—presents a triple bill of premieres performed on Partch’s extraordinary instruments. This year’s program includes the LA debut of Partch’s five-part Summer 1955, a setting of texts ranging from Psalm 137 and Shakespeare’s “Potion Scene” to Alice in Wonderland’s Adventures, and culminating in the composer’s clarinet arrangement of Ulysses written for jazz great Chet Baker. Composer Evan Ziporyn, described as “intoxicating” (The New York Times), presents the world premiere of Earth Studies, inspired by the visionary work of the DesignEarth architecture team whose texts and images intersect with Partch’s unique soundscape. Stephen James Taylor, known for his film scores, premieres HEAVE HO, bringing together hip hop, minimalism, microtonal, and pop music with Afro-futurism.

2023
3.31.23 Teatros Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil - EZ joins MIT Wind Ensemble, Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and Festival Jazz Ensemble in Manaus. Evan will be joined by Anat Cohen in a duet performance of his solo in his piece "Drill"

4.2.23 Big Ears Festival, Knoxville, TN - EZ Plays Terry Riley "Ki" (American premiere), Moondog & Steve Martland, with video accompanyment by Christine Southworth.

2022
2.25.22 Iva Bittova: New Resonances at MIT Kresge Auditorium Cambridge, MA

2.26.22 Caveh Zahedi: 365 Stories Live at Caveat, NYC

3.27.22 Evan Ziporyn: Pop Channel and Philip Glass' Best Out Of Three - WORLD PREMIERE - Big Ears Festival, Knoxville, TN

3.12.22 Gamelan Galak Tika at NXT Stage, Putney, VT

6.30.22 Clarinet Fest, Reno Nevada - Pop Channel and Phillip Glass' Best Out of Three

7.13.22 Evan Ziporyn: Pop Channel and Philip Glass' Best Out Of Three - WEST COAST PREMIERE - BAMPFA, Berkeley, CA 7:30pm

2020
9.23.20 Spider's Canvas / Arachnodrone at Starlight Square | Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA

1.10.20 AURA BLACKSTAR: BOWIE CELLO SYMPHONIC VISUALIZED | Winter Garden in Brookfield Place, New York, NY

2.15.20 Bowie Symphonic: Blackstar, Ambient Orchestra w/ Maya Beiser | Strathmore Hall, North Bethesda, MD

3.13.20 EZ Conducting MIT Symphony Orchestra: MITSO Movies Machover
MIT Sounding Series: Annual Rick & Terry Stone Concert - Join MITSO for an evening of film music by John Williams, Angelo Badalamenti, and Harry Manfredini, plus the world premiere of new settings of classic film noir title sequences by Don Byron (with film). The second half will feature the US premiere of Tod Machover's Toronto City Symphony, with new sections created in collaboration with MITSO members!
Program:Harry Manfredini, Friday the 13th Suite; Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch Suite (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks); John Williams, Devil's Dance from Witches of Eastwick; Don Byron, Three Pieces from the Saul Bass Title Project *World Premiere*; Tod Machover, Toronto City Symphony (MIT Version - US Premiere)

4.24.20 EZ Conducting MIT Symphony Orchestra: East/West (Co-Presented with MITHAS) Ravi Shankar Centennial Concert
We are pleased to welcome two concerto soloists on our second Spring program! Working in conjunction with MITHAS, MITSO is excited to present Ravi Shankar's Symphony for Orchestra with solo sitarist Gaurav Mazumdar, as well as Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G with MITSO Concerto Competition co-winner Venkatesh S. Sivaraman.

4.1.20 Gamelan Galak Tika plays EZ's Kekembagnan | MIT Kresge Auditorium

5.10.20 EZ Conducting MIT Symphony Orchestra: Recomposed - Our final concert of the season features MITSO's strings in this Max Richter's reimagined take on Vivaldi's Four Seasons, as well as Pablo Sarasate's Bizet-based Carment Fantasy for violin and orchestra, with MITSO Concerto Competition co-winner Joy Fan.

2019
1.23.19 Richmond Symphony plays Ngaben | ‘Tucker Boatwright Festival, Southeast Asian Connections’

1.24.19 Richmond Symphony plays Ngaben | Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Richmond, VA

2.16-18.19 MIT Sounding presents Spider's Canvas/Arachnodrone | MIT W97, Cambridge, MA

2.28.19 Bowie Symphonic: Blackstar, Ambient Orchestra w/ Maya Beiser | Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA

3.15.19 Ambient Primer, Ambient Orchestra plays Fripp/Eno, Laraaji, Ziporyn | Adelaide Fringe Festival, Adelaide, Australia

3.16-17.19 Bowie Symphonic: Blackstar, Ambient Orchestra w/ Maya Beiser | Adelaide Fringe Festival, Adelaide, Australia

4.7.19 Air = Water world premiere | Network for New Music, Settlement Music School, Philadelphia, PA

4.16.19 11:30am + 1:30pm Spider's Canvas/Arachnodrone | MIT Nano Immersion Lab, Building 12, Cambridge Ma

4.18.19 9 pm Joel Fan plays Don't Want to Wait | MIT Killian Hall, Cambridge, MA

4.20.19 Fie Schouten plays EZ's Walk the Dog | Night Concert, Mazkeka, Jerusalem

5.5.19 4 pm Gamelan Galak Tika play EZ's Aneh Tapi Nyata | MIT W97 Theater, 345 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA 02139

5.10.19 WGBH Fraser Performance, Air=Water w/Brooklyn Rider, Boston

6.5.19 MIT Nano, Arachnodrone/Spider’s Canvas, Cambridge MA

7.31.19 Ambient Summer Nights w/Contact New Music & Sumie Kaneko | MIT Killian Hall, Cambridge MA

9.1.19 Toronto Intersection Festival – Compositions & Arrangements w/Contact New Music

9.20.19 MIT Sounding, Ambient Orchestra Plays Glenn Branca, EZ conductor, Kresge Auditorium

10.10.19 EZ Conducting MIT Symphony Orchestra: The Heart is a Bell featuring Vitezslava Kapralova, Suita Rustica; Evan Ziporyn, Frog’s Eye; Iva Bittova, Zvon (US premiere)

10.16-19.19 Evan Ziporyn Guest Composer at 40th Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival various performers playing the following compositions: Partial Truths (solo bass clarinet), Impulse Control (world premiere – drum set and wind ensemble), Waiting by the Phone (solo clarinet), Tsmindao Ghmerto (solo bass clarinet), Kekembangan (gamelan and saxophone quartet), Tunggal (solo vibraphone), Where Was I (mixed trio), Project for a Revolution in New York (chamber ensemble), War Chant (orchestra)

11.22.19 EZ Conducting MIT Symphony Orchestra: Ambient Classical featuring Erik Satie / Ziporyn, Gymnopedies XYZ; Richard Wagner, Preludes from Das Rheingold and Lohengrin; Felix Mendelssohn, Capriccio Brillant (Jansson, piano soloist); Pauline Oliveros, Meditation for Orchestra; Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, Evening Star (US Premiere)

11.24.19 Fie Schouten plays EZ's Walk the Dog | Rotterdam, Netherlands

Albums

Bowie Cello Symphonic: Blackstar

$15 CD

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Eviyan: Nayive

$15

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Eviyan Live

Digital Album $10

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In My Mind and In My Car

Digital Album $7

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Uncovered

$15

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Frog's Eye: Boston Modern Orchestra Project

$15

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Big Grenadilla/Mumbai: Boston Modern Orchestra Project

$15

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Evan Ziporyn Gamelan Galak Tika (Amok! and Tire Fire)

Digital Download

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Shadowbang: Bang on a Can All-Stars with Wayan Wija

$15

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This is Not a Clarinet

$15

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American Works for Balinese Gamelan

Digital Download $2

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Animal Act

Digital Album $5

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Brooklyn Rider: Spontaneous Symbols

Digital Album $10

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Green Light by Evan Ziporyn / Wacław Zimpel / Hubert Zemler / Gyan Riley

€12

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Typical Music

$10

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Press

“Futuristic while playing with tradition, exotic without being artificial”

Evan Burke, I Care if You LIsten

Press

“Ziporyn’s arrangement draws out the epic sweep, translating Bowie’s introspection into letters big enough for sky-writing. It turns out the combination of cutting edge classical music and the work of an arty rock hero can sound pretty sweet”

Jeremy Goodwyn, WBUR [on EZ's arrangements of Bowie's Blackstar]

Press

"Distilled insights of a hybrid music come of age"

Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe [on EVIYAN]

Press

Exuberant blast of metal fireworks.

Anne Midgette, The New York Times [on EZ's Tire Fire / Gamelan Galak Tika]

Press

“intoxicating… Mr. Ziporyn’s music achieves alchemies of sound and spirit. The security with which Mr. Ziporyn moves between musical poles, and the subtlety with which he unites them...”

Steve Smith, NY Times, 2010

Press

“the highlight for me was Tire Fire, a 1994 work by Evan Ziporyn, played by his ensemble, Gamelan Galak Tika – a fusion of Balinese gamelan, electric guitar, electric bass and keyboard – the work swings thrillingly between cacophony and lyricism: a portrait of cultural exchange always in flux.”

Steve Smith, NY Times, on Tire Fire, May 1 2012

Press

“Evan Ziporyn's three-movement "Breathing Space" is an attractive hybrid of Minimalist simplicity and Neo-Classical elegance with an invitingly meditative inner movement, "Night Sit.”

Allen Kozinn, NY Times, on Breathing Space, early 2000s

Press

“Using his own lungs, overdubs, and a bit of echo, Ziporyn coaxes sounds from the instrument you've never imagined. The instrument shrieks and howls, shaking at times with resonant overtones and fluttering at others in delicate curlicues of music. The lowly clarinet, it turns out, can growl like an Australian didgeridoo, splat like a snowball, yelp like a dog, shake you awake, or lull you into a gentle trance.
As a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ziporyn has rubbed shoulders with artists like Brian Eno, Don Byron, and the Kronos Quartet. You can hear echoes of each as you listen. You'll also hear elements of minimalism, as well as touches of Balinese Gamelan, Pakistani qawwali and American funk.
This is not a Clarinet, it turns out, is an accurate title after all, for what you once knew as a modest musical instrument becomes an entree to a world of intriguing, innovative sound.”

NPR All Things Considered, Colin Berry, review of This is Not a Clarinet (9/10/2001)

Press

“Tire Fire, a flamboyant fusion of Balinese gamelan and rock guitars into something new, personal and exhilarating…a shimmering culture clash”

Steve Smith on Tire Fire, NY Times 2010

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Contact

evan@ziporyn.com

Composer / Conductor / Clarinetist

E V A N Z I P O R Y N

New Release: Art Decade: Evan Ziporyn & ContaQt Reimagine the music of Bowie, Fripp, Eno, and Budd

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