EVIYAN Premieres as part of CAST Spring Sound Series

The musical trio EVIYAN was born in vocalist-violinist Iva Bittová’s house in the woods of the Hudson Valley after a few bowls of mushroom soup. In that rustic setting, performer-composers Bittová, Gyan Riley and Evan Ziporyn came together for the first time to create the kind of loose musical tapestries — weaving elements of the classical, folk, jazz, minimalist and global traditions — that debuted to high acclaim on Saturday, March 2nd at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. “It felt like a family reunion,” says Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music and Faculty Director of the Center for Art, Science & Technology.

The group was Ziporyn’s brainchild as the next phase after a 20-year tenure with the celebrated genre-smashing group Bang on a Can. For the past several decades, Ziporyn has combed the globe in search of new musical possibilities, most significantly working with Balinese gamelan musicians — from master teachers to adventurous teenagers — since the early 1980s. While much of his previous work took its shape from the sensation of cultural dissonance, where “the form and content [of the music] was the cultural clash,” his newest project demonstrates a more easy coexistence between diverse traditions. He describes the experience of playing with Bittová and Riley as “gliding.”

Read the full story here at MIT Campus News.

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Anya Ventura