Panelists

Evan Ziporyn

Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at MIT and the Faculty Director of the MIT Center for Art Science and Technology

Symposium Convener

Evan Ziporyn conducts the opening concert of MITSO’s season, “The Heart is a Bell,” in which Iva Bittová performed the US premiere of her album Zvon. Credit: Caroline Alden.
CAST Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn conducts the Ambient Orchestra in Blackstar, David Bowie’s last album. Credit: Justin Knight.

Evan Ziporyn is a clarinetist and composer who makes music at the crossroads between genres and cultures, east and west. Building on a history of extensive collaboration and inspired by discussions of dark matter with 2018–20 Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist at CAST Matthew Ritchie, and MIT Professor of Physics Peter H. Fisher, Ziporyn composed the otherworldly music and soundscape for The Invisible College.

Biography: MIT Music and Theater Arts
Website: www.ziporyn.com
Social: Facebook | Instagram

Evan Ziporyn addresses an audience in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. Credit: Andy Ryan/MIT.

Related Works

Blackstar

2017

Evan Ziporyn conducted the Ambient Orchestra and cellist Maya Beiser in his arrangement of Blackstar, David Bowie’s last album, as part of the MIT Sounding series. The concert also featured a new app called NoteStream, developed by MIT students and Eran Egozy, MIT alum and founder of Harmonix.

State of the Art Podcast: “The Art of MIT”

2018

In this episode, host Gabriel Barcia-Colombo speaks with Leila W. Kinney and Evan Ziporyn about MIT’s culture of creativity and exploration, the institution’s mission to humanize science and tech, and the exciting projects that have emerged from CAST, like Tomás Saraceno’s Arachnid Orchestra.

Spider’s Canvas

2019

Spider’s Canvas features a digital map of a spider web in which each strand “tuned” to a different note. It is a co-creation of composer Evan Ziporyn, composer/visual artist Christine Southworth ’02, sound artist Ian Hattwick, spider researcher Isabelle Su, in collaboration with artist Tomás Saraceno, whose originating idea provides the basis of the concert, and MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department Head and McAfee Professor Markus Buehler.