Zeena Parkins
harp
Zeena Parkins is a New York–based electro-acoustic composer and improviser, and a pioneer of contemporary harp practices. She composes for dance, theater, film, and installation, with commissions from the Whitney Museum, Tate Modern, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Sharjah Art Foundation, and Bang on a Can. Her long-standing dance collaborators include the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Jennifer Monson/ILand, Neil Greenberg, and John Jasperse/Thin Man Dance, and she has created film scores for Daria Martin, Cynthia Madansky, Abigail Child, Mandy MacIntosh, and Isabella Rossellini. Parkins has also collaborated with Björk, Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Pauline Oliveros, Butch Morris, Ikue Mori, Fred Frith, Nels Cline, William Winant, Miya Masaoka, JACK Quartet, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, and Sō Percussion. Her six solo harp recordings appear on labels including Table of the Elements, Atavistic, Good Child Music, and her own Case Study Records, while her compositions and band projects have been released by Avant, Tzadik, Editions Mego, Homestead, Victo, One Little Indian, and RecRec. Recent albums include Captiva (solo harp), MZM (with Miya Masaoka and Myra Melford), and Thinking in Stitches (with Green Dome).
Parkins' honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant, NYFA Fellowship for Composers, three Bessies for work with dance, and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust/Live Music for Dance Award. She currently holds the Darius Milhaud Chair in Composition at Mills College.