Exploring Improsition—the melding improvisation and composition. MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble. Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director. Special guests: Eviyan: Iva Bittová, Gyan Riley, and Evan Ziporyn. World premiere arrangements of Eviyan compositions by Jamshied Sharifi, and music of Kurt Rosenwinkle, Thad Jones, and Bob Mintzer. Ricky Richardson, ’12, and members of the MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble also featured. Co-sponsored by the Center for Art, Science & Technology, CAST.
About the Artists
EVIYAN is Iva Bittová, Gyan Riley, and Evan Ziporyn: three unique composer-performers merging into a singular sound. EVIYAN is a blend of Eastern European folk traditions, Indian classical music, gamelan, jazz, rock, cabaret and minimalism.
Clarinetist/composer Evan Ziporyn has toured the globe for over 30 years in search of new musical possibilities, studying with Balinese gamelan masters and collaborating with musicians from Asia, Africa and Europe on numerous groundbreaking cross-cultural works.
Legendary vocalist/violinist Iva Bittová‘s captivating and unforgettable vocal palette, ever expanding, merges the age-old practices of her Moravian and Roma roots with an urban sophistication drawing equally on jazz, rock, cabaret and the avant-garde.
Acoustic guitarist Gyan Riley brings the virtuosity of two venerable traditions – western classical guitar and the rigors of Hindustani music – together with the harmonic deftness of jazz and the grit of rock-and-roll. The son of minimalist master Terry Riley, he is now a fixture on the New York new music scene.
This residency is presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and Music & Theater Arts Section as part of the 2015-16 MIT Sounding Series.
