Zhoushu Herakleitos Ziporyn

Zhoushu Ziporyn is a Roy Dickinson Welch Fellow PhD student at Princeton University, focusing on the philosophy of music, humor and time, in conjunction with music theory and cognitive zoo-cultural musicology. Winner of various awards, including the Nicola De Lorenzo Prize for Music Composition, the Eisner Music Award, The Matthew William Fisher Memorial Award, Alfred Hertz Traveling Scholarship and nominee of the Theatre Bay Area Award for his theatre work in San Francisco. Member of Phi Betta Kappa. Zhoushu has been taught the traditional art of Kyōgen under master Tōjiro Yamamoto, culminating in a hired performance with the Yamamoto family themselves at the National Nō Theater of Japan. After graduating UC Berkeley with a double-major BA (with high distinction) in both Music (Department Citation) and Philosophy, Zhoushu continues to learn from and perform with the Yamamoto company at various venues in Japan to the present, while also actively learning Gagaku music and the shō under the tutelage of gagaku players from the Imperial Household Agency. His philosophical essay on Zhuangzi’s “Butterfly Dream” was published (2017) in Brown University’s philosophy journal, A Priori, and his original post-modern cantata “Star Wars Palimpsest” was published (2018) in UC Berkeley’s Arts and Design journal. As a bicultural amphibian, spanning the SF Bay Area to Tokyo, his pieces have been premiered and recorded by many artists, including harpsichordist Davitt Moroney and guitarist Daisuke Suzuki. As a heartfelt continuation on the theme of “mutual symbiosis” from his government funded research at Tsukuba University in his childhood, he hopes to curate and develop a synergetic culture and discourse that sees the arts and the sciences as two dialoguing cultures, with special inspiration from the Japanese Kagura traditions.