John Zorn
Biography
John Zorn (1953, New York) is an American composer, music producer and bandleader who plays saxophone and clarinet. He is the owner of the record label Tzadik and works with many experimental musicians, especially in the field of new music and jazz. Zorn's music is rooted in various genres, such as film music for animated films, free jazz, hardcore and Jewish folklore. He often combines short musical sequences in collage-like form, sometimes in rapid succession. In 1975 he founded his Theatre of Musical Optics. He achieved international recognition in the 1980s and worked in New York and Tokyo. Zorn explicitly embraces his Jewish heritage and incorporates traditional Jewish elements in some of his projects. He formulated a new so-called "Radical Jewish Culture" and adopted a manifesto on the radical Jewishness of his music. He composed many film soundtracks and worked for orchestras and ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet.