Zhoushu Ziporyn GS

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Zhoushu Ziporyn GS

Composer, Director, Musician, Playwright, Songwriter, Writer

Me in 50 words or less:
Zhoushu Ziporyn is a violinist, composer, and junior scholar, gaining award-winning recognition in all three domains. Zhoushu has been taught the traditional art of Kyōgen under master Tōjiro Yamamoto, culminating in a hired performance with the Yamamoto family themselves at the National Nō Theater of Japan. Gagaku music, shō (Japanese mouth organ) player, and zoomusicology.

Graduate Affiliations

Department: Music

Bio

Zhoushu Ziporyn is a violinist, composer, and junior scholar, gaining award-winning recognition in all three domains. Zhoushu has been taught the traditional art of Kyōgen under master Tōjiro Yamamoto, culminating in a hired performance with the Yamamoto family themselves at the National Nō Theater of Japan. Winner of various awards, including the Nicola De Lorenzo Prize for Music Composition, the Rob Schultz Junior Scholar Award for best junior paper (AAWM 2021), the Eisner Music Award, the Matthew William Fisher Memorial Award, Alfred Hertz Traveling Scholarship, and nominee of the Theatre Bay Area Award for his theatre work in San Francisco. He is also well-versed in the shō (Japanese mouth organ) from the Gagaku tradition. As a bicultural amphibian who lives across the US and Japan, his pieces have been premiered and recorded by many artists, including harpsichordist Davitt Moroney and guitarist Daisuke Suzuki (鈴木大介). His philosophical essay on Zhuangzi’s “Butterfly Dream” was published (2017) in Brown University’s philosophy journal, A Priori, and his original post-modern cantata “Star Wars Palimpsest” was published (2018) in UC Berkeley’s arts and design journal. His music, spanning diverse styles from gagaku to jazz, is available on iTunes/Apple Music, in his first original album release entitled Fate Is An Opportunist Owl.

Featured Project

One of his recent works includes writing the music for A Noh Christmas Carol, a fusion music theatre piece that incorporates Japanese Noh theatre stylizations, at the Theatre of Yugen in San Francisco. The piece was restaged numerous times due to popular demand and was poised as a “must-see” by Broadway World, culminating in a nomination for the Theatre Bay Area Award for best music. His music, spanning diverse styles from gagaku to jazz, is available on iTunes/Apple Music, in his first original album release entitled Fate Is An Opportunist Owl.

Review of Noh Christmas Carol by Broadway World

 

Artist Statement

Thinking about the universe creatively, analytically, and cross-culturally.

Contact Zhoushu Ziporyn