Assistant Professor Evan Ziporyn of the Music and Theater Arts Section is the recipient of both the 1992 Wade Award and the Class of 1958 Career Development Professorship. Professor Ziporyn is a composer and clarinetist whose work has been critically acclaimed on four continents.
In May 1992, Provost Mark S. Wrighton announced that Professor Ziporyn would be this year's recipient of the Wade Award, a $30,000 grant given annually since 1985 to a junior faculty member to support his or her research or other creative projects. Professor Ziporyn is the first School of Humanities and Social Science faculty member to receive the award. The grant will be used to support Dr. Ziporyn's scholarly activities and to help produce his full-length opera based on the life of the seventeenth century mystic, Sabbatai Sevi.
In July, Dr. Ziporyn was appointed Class of 1958 Career Development Professor, a chair established to recognize and encourage innovative and imaginative teaching by junior faculty members who show exceptional promise.
Since 1980, Professor Ziporyn has divided his time equally to new music, jazz, and Balinese music, attempting in his own work to bring all these traditions together in a meaningful synthesis. He has made several extended trips to Bali, Southeast Asia, and Africa, performing, teaching, and studying. In 1987 he received a Fulbright Fellowship for his studies in Balinese music. He completed his undergraduate work at Yale University and received his MA and PhD in music composition from the University of California at Berkeley.
Since coming to MIT in 1990, Professor Ziporyn has taught harmony, counterpoint, and world music. According to Philip S. Khoury, dean of Humanities and Social Science, "Evan Ziporyn will play a critical role as the Music and Theater Arts Section expands its curriculum to include music from non-Western traditions. He possesses the wonderful ability to blend a wide variety of musical traditions in his teaching, composition, and performance."
A version of this article appeared in the November 4, 1992 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 37, Number 12).
