Working to create emotionally engaging musical experiences, American composer Keeril Makan combines an exploration of the rich detail inherent in sound with an unmistakably visceral energy. Drawing from diverse sources such as American folk music, the European avant-garde, Indian classical music, and minimalism, he synthesizes a music that, in its sheer intensity, thwarts assumptions of what is beautiful.
Keeril grew up in New Jersey, of a mixed Indian and Russian Jewish heritage. After initial musical studies in violin and oboe, he went on to receive degrees in composition and religion at Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio. He is completing his Ph.D. in composition at the University of California, Berkeley where he has studied composition with Edmund Campion and Jorge Liderman, and computer music at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) with David Wessel. Outside of the U.S., Keeril spent a year in Helsinki, Finland at the Sibelius Academy on a Fulbright grant. He is currently living in Paris, France, where he is studying with Philippe Leroux, having been awarded the George Ladd Prix de Paris from the University of California, Berkeley.
Trained as a violinist, Keeril Makan has received degrees in music and religion from Oberlin and the University of California at Berkeley, and subsequently studied in Helsinki and Paris. His commissions include ones from the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the American Composers Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall. His music has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Meet the Composer, and ASCAP. He was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome for 2008-9. Makan's work has been featured at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco and the MATA Festival in New York, and internationally at the Gaudeamus Festival in the Netherlands, Musica Nova in Finland, and Voix Nouvelles in France. He has collaborated with poet Jena Osman and choreographer Benjamin Levy and frequently works with emerging new music artists such as the Del Sol String Quartet, percussionist David Shively, and soprano Laurie Rubin. His baritone saxophone solo Voice within Voice appears on Brian Sacawa's CD American Voices on Innova. The first CD of his music, In Sound, was released on the Tzadik label in June 2008 with performances by the Kronos Quartet and Paul Dresher Ensemble. Makan is Assistant Professor of Music at MIT and makes his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Current projects include commissions from the California EAR Unit and the Harvard Musical Association. For more information, visit www.keerilmakan.com.