Michael Zapruder - Opera & Concert Works

Bio

Michael Zapruder is a composer whose work brings a songwriter’s sense of melody and text to opera, chamber music, and theater. He is currently developing Book of Lives, a new opera.

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His chamber opera Golden (2017), for Pierrot ensemble, percussion, and electronics, and his monodrama In Light (2019), for soprano, flute, guitar, percussion, and electronics, both premiered at the Cohen New Works Festival in Austin. His concert works include Polysong, commissioned by Tetractys; Understory, for guitar trio and live electronics, presented by Texas Performing Arts with the Fusebox Festival; Tritone Arch for string quartet, winner of a Seattle Composers’ Alliance award; and HALFBIRD (2024) for two violins and live electronics. For theater and dance he has composed and designed sound for Texas Performing Arts’ The Merchant of Venice and Maureen Whiting Dance Company’s Burden of Joy, and co-created The Changelings, a campfire song cycle mixing immersive theater, folk songwriting, and choral music.

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Before and alongside this work, he made more than a dozen albums as a songwriter, including Pink Thunder, twenty-two songs made from poems by living American poets, named the Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Project of 2012. His new solo album, Ten Forevers, is forthcoming.

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He holds a DMA in composition from the University of Texas at Austin and co-directs Tetractys New Music, which presents the Here Be Monsters festival. He lives and works in Austin, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area.