Evan Ziporyn (b. 1959, Chicago) makes music at the crossroads of genre and culture. His work draws on his 35-year involvement with traditional Balinese gamelan, but is equally informed by American experimental music, jazz and world music. He has composed for Yo-yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, Maya Beiser,the American Composers Orchestra, Brooklyn Rider, So Percussion, Wu Man, Nederlands Blazers, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Sandeep Das, Gamelan Semara Ratih, and many other soloists and ensembles. His opera A House in Bali was featured at BAM Next Wave in 2010. His credits as a conductor include Germany’s Ensemble Modern, Barcelona Symphony (in his arrangement of David Bowie’s final album Blackstar), Ensemble Resonanz at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and, as an opera director, Keeril Makan’s Persona at LA Opera Redcat.

As a clarinetist, he founded the Bang on a Can All-stars in 1992, producing and arranging that ensemble’s seminal recording of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports and continued to lead and tour with that ensemble until 2012. He has contributed to two Grammy-winning albums, as a performer in Steve Reich’s 1999 Music for 18 Musicians (Best Chamber Music Performance) and as an arranger for Sillkroad Ensemble’s 2016 Sing Me Home (Best World Music Album). His playing and arrangements are also featured in Ken Burns’ newly released documentary The Vietnam War, currently airing on US public television. His recording of Don Byron’s Clarinet Concerto was named a 2015 Album of the Year by “Downbeat” Magazine. He has performed evening-length collaboration with Christine Southworth, In My Mind & In My Car, in six countries, including Cuba, Indonesia, Brussels Ars Musica, and the 2014 Katowice OFF Festival. He collaborates regularly with Iva Bittova and Gyan Riley as the Eviyan Trio, and has also worked with Paul Simon, Mark Morris, Alim & Fargana Qasimov, Ornette Coleman, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Claire Chase, Bryce Dessner, Louis Andriessen, Matthew Shipp, Shara Worden, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Beata Hlavenkova, ICE and Ethel.

Evan Ziporynstudied at Eastman, Yale & UC Berkeley with Joseph Schwantner, Martin Bresnick and Gerard Grisey. His previous Sacrum Profanum appearance was with Bang on a Can, performing Eno, Steve Reich, and his own works, in 2011. He last appeared in Krakow with Wacław Zimpel and Hubert Zemler, providing accompaniment for Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman at the 14th Silent Film Festival in 2013. He heads the Music & Theater Arts Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where is also Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, and Faculty Director of the Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST)