A musician with many
diverse interests, Mark Zaki has created
works that range from traditional
chamber music to new media and music for
film. Also an active violinist and
violist, Zaki was one of the first
musicians to use and explore the Zeta
(MIDI) violin as an instrument for
experimental composition and
performance. Demonstrating a wide range
of compositional techniques, his music
has incorporated and transformed
elements from a variety of traditional
and popular musical forms, serial
procedures, improvisatory contexts and
acousmatic practice into a highly
idiosyncratic style.
Recent film projects include an
acousmatic score for the film The Eyes
of van Gogh, a score for the Peabody
award nominated documentary The
Political Dr. Seuss, and a new media
installation Absence, Presence which
premiered at the California Museum of
Photography in Riverside, CA in a six
week exhibition called Bits and Pieces.
His work has been presented by the MIN
Ensemblet (Norway), the Los Angeles
Sonic Odyssey Electronic and Computer
Music Concert Series, the Comunidad
Electroacoustica de Chile (Santiago),
the Holland Festival Oude Muziek
(Utrecht), the Not Still Art Festival
(NYC), the International Computer Music
Conference (Miami 2004 & Barcelona
2005), Nuit Bleue (France), Electrolune
(France), Primavera en La Habana (Cuba),
Musica Nova (Prague), the Seoul
International Computer Music Festival,
the SEAMUS National Conference, the
Florida Electronic Music Festival, the
NWEAMO Festival (San Diego), Most
Significant Bytes (Ohio), The
SoundImageSound Series (Stockton, CA),
the New Music Miami ISCM Festival, the
Cycle de Concerts de Musique par
Ordinateur (Paris), the Pulse Field
International Exhibition of Sound Art
(Atlanta), and in the Canadian
Electroacoustic Community’s CD project
DisContact! III. Mark also recently
collaborated with director Annie Loui
and video artist Antoinette LaFarge
scoring their immersive theater and
multimedia work Reading Frankenstein.
Zaki includes among his teachers Paul
Lansky, Steven Mackey, Charles Wuorinen
and Arnold Steinhardt. He has doctoral
degrees in composition and music
technology from Princeton University and
in violin/viola performance from Rutgers
University. Currently, he divides his
time between New York City and Los
Angeles.
