Sospeso performs a new work by John Zorn, Orphée, at the Boulez tribute concert on May 10, 2005, at Zankel Hall.

As a child, Mr. Zorn attended the United Nations School, where he had composition lessons with Leonardo Balada and Charles Turner. Later, as a student at Webster College (St Louis), he came into contact with members of the Black Artist Group (BAG) and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and began to play the saxophone. After a stay on the West Coast, he returned to New York in 1974, making his mark as a virtuoso saxophonist on the lively Lower East Side improvisation scene that grew up around such musicians as Eugene Chadbourne, Tom Cora, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, Christian Marclay and Elliott Sharp. In an effort to introduce structure into free improvisation, Zorn developed so-called ‘game pieces’, such as School, Pool, Archery and Cobra, that steer musicians’ interaction without specifying either the material or syntax of individual parts. His commercial breakthrough came with the release of the Morricone arrangements on the LP The Big Gundown (1986). Here, and in succeeding works, he employed abrupt, block-like alternations of contrasting styles and sound-types noted on index cards (hence the name ‘file card pieces’) to structure the music. His liking for extremes of tempo and dynamics led to the founding (around 1990) of groups such as Naked City and Painkiller, in which he engaged with Pop-Underground genres such as Trash and Speed Metal.

In 1992 Zorn and Marc Ribot formulated the manifesto of what they called a ‘radical Jewish culture’, the intention of which was to bring out and make visible the Jewish components of American culture. Zorn’s Holocaust work Kristallnacht (1992) was the first to document his engagement with his Jewish roots. Later, with ensembles such as Masada and Bar Kokhba, he used melodies inflected by Middle Eastern modality as the basis for jazz-inspired improvisation. Fully notated works such as Redbird (1995), a piece for chamber ensemble influenced by Morton Feldman, attested to a move away from the primacy of stark contrasts and rapid alternations.

The most charismatic figure in New York’s Lower East Side music scene, Zorn has been an archetypal example of the composer in the media age; he ignores the boundaries that have evolved between genres and takes inspiration from every kind of music available. His widely varied influences have included the music of Ives, Partch, Cage and Kagel, as well as Carl W. Stalling, a composer of animated cartoon scores, the hard-core band Napalm Death and improvisers such as Derek Bailey, Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton. Rejecting the Western concept of the autonomous genius-composer, he has created an aesthetic of productive collaboration and radical eclecticism. As well as composing and playing the saxophone, he has managed the avant-garde record label Tzadik.

Peter Niklas Wilson in the New Grove. Photo of Mr. Zorn courtesy of the Unofficial John Zorn website.