John Zorn was born in New York city in 1953. Zorn played a variety of instruments before studying saxophone and composition at Webster College in St. Louis in the early 1970's. He is founding member and saxophonist of the group "Naked City" and composed all of the works the ensemble performed.
Zorn has written film scores and cartoon soundtracks, and has composed several works for a variety of instrumentation. Zorn continues to collaborate with acclaimed musicians and is considered a master of making use of a recording studio as a compositional tool. Many of Zorn's compositions exist only in their recorded renditions, which are assembled "moment by moment" in the studio.
For six months each year he lives in Tokyo, absorbing a culture he admires for its ability to borrow and mirror other cultures. Zorn tours and performs with his group and with other collaborators in many cities throughout the United States, Japan and Europe.
Over the last several years, Zorn has developed a compositional method in which he jots down diverse ideas and images - musical "moments" - on filing cards, which are then sorted and ordered to provide the composition's structure. Zorn's method of composition has been influenced by cartoon soundtracks and their composers, particularly Carl Stalling (of the Warner Brothers cartoons), whom Zorn equates with Stravinsky for the ability to compose a piece from disparate musical elements. Speed, the increasing rate at which the world .....
