Zhou Long

Zhou Long (cond): [Zhou Long / Music from China: Tales from the Cave]

Zhou Long is a US composer of Chinese origin. His works - as far as I can tell - are often composed for Chinese instruments or a mixture of Chinese and western chamber ensembles, yet they do not only draw their right to exist from this cultural hybridity (even when Zhou is writing for Chinese instruments exclusively, his compositional style itself is already a hybrid between oriental and accidental musical culture), but they rest in themselves. Not covering or denying hybridity, they are more a unified whole, where political correctness doesn't count anymore - all that counts is artistic value.
On this blog I am actually normally not including composers but focussing on performers of music - though many of the improvisers mentioned here are certainly "instant composers" in Misha Mengelberg's sense of the word. However, as Zhou Long is not only a composer but also a conductor of his and other people's works, I count him as a performer, too. In his function as a performer, he's also the artistic director of New York's ensemble Music from China. Therefore: voilà!

"My mother is a soprano, and she taught German lied, French art song, and some opera repertoire. And from my childhood I heard a lot of recordings. My childhood was really Western music, but since then I worked in the countryside and later I worked with a song-and-dance troupe in Zhang Jia Kou, a small city near Beijing. I also went to the countryside to collect folk songs, and I started to love the folk songs. I was in Mongolia, and everyone from the age of five years old was riding horses and sang songs that were really moving and touching to me. I worked in a junction of three provinces. That city near Beijing is in Hubei [Province] and is also near Shangxi Province and Mongolia. So I really had access to different styles. And the local opera was in different dialects. And, also in the Conservatory, our class all signed up to go south to collect folk songs during summer vacation. Also, I paid more attention to Chinese traditional instruments which might make my music sound more Chinese. But my influences come from 20th-century Western composers, whom I had already started looking at in China. Respighi is a strong influence on my orchestration. Of course, I studied Bartók and Stravinsky. They have the same method we do, using folk songs as material into our composition. I don't know. Chinese composers all have some Chinese style. Maybe I pay more attention to the traditional influences." (Zhou Long in an interview)

Evan Ziporyn

Evan Ziporyn (bcl,cl): [Bang on a Can & Don Byron: A Ballad for Many]

Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music and music for Balinese gamelans. He plays the clarinet, bass clarinet, and metallophone, borrowing from classical music, avant-garde, and jazz. A member of Bang on a Can All-Stars and a former member of Steve Reich and Musicians, he is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT), where he directs Gamelan Galak Tika, an ensemble made up of 30 MIT students, staff and community members, in the study and performing of traditional and modern Balinese music.
He has released albums on Cantaloupe, New Albion, New World, and CRI Emergency Music. As a performer, he has recorded for Nonesuch, Sony Classical, and Point Music. He has also composed music for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, the American Composers Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Kronos Quartet, and the MIT Wind Ensemble.
(from Wikipedia)

It is quite interesting to hear one clarinetist (Don Byron) compose/arrange for another ensemble with clarinet-player (Bang on a Can with Evan Ziporyn). In general you can hear why Don Byron's always insisting that he doesn't want to be seen only as a jazz improviser: His insistance on not being labelled too easily is not only justified by his explorations of klezmer, funk, soul etc., but also by this compositional effort. And concerning the aforementioned clarinetist-relationship: I think both could let go. Ziporyn doesn't try to sound like Byron, but at the same time he cannot deny Byron's handwriting. And vice versa: Byron as composer and producer of this disc doesn't force Ziporyn to sound like he himself.

John Zorn: Works, Collaborations, Appearances 1

John Zorn (as,cond): [Ma­sa­da: A­lef>] [John Zorn: Archery] [Marc Ri­bot: As­mo­deus – Book of An­gels Vol. 7 (comp,cond)] [Bob Oster­tag: At­ten­tion Span tracks #1-26] [Ma­sa­da: Beit] [Pain­kil­ler: Bu­ried Se­crets] [John Zorn: Cobra (Hat Hut)] [Da­vid Gar­land: Con­trol Songs track #6] [Butch Mor­ris: Cur­rent Trends in Ra­cism in Mo­dern Ame­ri­ca] [Kip Han­ra­han: De­si­re De­ve­lops an Ed­ge track #12] [John Zorn: Du­ras: Du­champ (comp,cond)] [John Zorn & Bobby Previte: Euclid's Nightmare]

John Zorn: Works, Collaborations, Appearances 2

John Zorn (as,composition): [Ma­sa­da: 50^th Birth­day Ce­le­bra­tion Vol. 7] [Pain­kil­ler: 50^thBirth­day Ce­le­bra­tion Vol. 12] [John Zorn: Film­works 1 – 1986- 1990] [John Zorn: Film­works 3 – 1990-1995] [John Zorn>: Film­works 4 – S&M # 5 (keyb)] [John Zorn: Film­works V: Tears of Ecs­ta­cy] [John Zorn: Film­works VI 1996] [John Zorn: Filmworks IX: Trembling Before G-d] [John Zorn: Film­works X] [John Zorn: Film­works XI] [John Zorn: Film­works XII (#1-6 org,p,harm)] [John Zorn: Film­works XV (el-p)] [John Zorn: Film­works XVI (org,ga­me­lan)] [John Zorn: Film­works XVII]

John Zorn: Works, Collaborations, Appearances 4

John Zorn (as): [John Zorn: Music Romance Vol. 1: Music for Children tracks #4,6,7] [Na­ked Ci­ty: Na­ked Ci­ty] [John Zorn, Geor­ge Le­wis, Bill Fri­sell: News for Lu­lu] [Pri­ma Ma­te­ria: Pea­ce on Earth tracks #1,3] [Pre­lap­se: Pre­lap­se tracks #3,6,7,13,14,18,19,21-23] [Na­ked Ci­ty: Ra­dio] [Painkiller: Rituals] [Frank London: Scientist at Work track #6] [Ste­ve Be­res­ford: Sig­nals for Tea] [Bla­de­run­ner: South­street Sea­port Sta­dium (Bootleg)] [John Zorn: Spy vs. Spy] [The In­ter­ga­lac­tic Mai­den Or­ches­tra: Squa­re Dan­ce tracks #2,4,7,8] [Fred Frith: Tech­no­lo­gy of Tears tracks #1-3]

John Zorn: Works, Collaborations, Appearances 5

John Zorn (as) [Eu­ge­ne Chad­bour­ne: 2000 Sta­tues and The Eng­lish Chan­nel] [Ma­sa­da: Vav] [Bla­de­run­ner: Vic­to­ria­vil­le (Bootleg)] [Cy­ro Bap­tis­ta: Vi­ra Lou­cos] [Son­ny Clark Me­mo­rial Quar­tet: Voo­doo] [Oto­mo Yo­shi­hi­de: We Insist? tracks #9,14] [Weird Litt­le Boy: s/t] [Ma­sa­da: Za­yin]

John Zorn - Some pieces

John Zorn (as): „Con­tact“ (voc, arr) Me­des­ki, Mar­tin & Wood: „Dra­cu­la” (DJ Logic Remix) Fred Frith & John Zorn : „Hous­ton Street“ John Zorn: „Der klei­ne Leut­nant des lie­ben Got­tes” Half Ja­pa­ne­se: „Should I Tell Her?“ John Zorn: "Shuffle Boil"