Arts and Humanities Commons^™

John Zorn. The Gift; Songs From The Hermetic Theatre (2001). Chimeras; Masada Guitars (2003). Masada Recital; Magick (2004). Rituals (2005). Astronome; Masada Rock; Moonchild, Christian T. Asplund

Faculty Publications

Once the unruly upstart, John Zorn is now a MacArthur fellow, whose formidable catalog divides easily into early, middle, and late periods. The early period dates from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, when Zorn pioneered the practice of "comprovisation," a term used to describe "the making of new compositions from recordings of improvised material." Ultimately, Zorn's comprovisation blurs the lines between active listener and composer, since both create new works when they impose structure on found sonic material. His early structuralist-modernist approach to comprovisation produced esoteric, often severely pointillist music, and evolved into the game pieces of the late 1970s …