Ian Ding

Ian Ding is a versatile performer whose work encompasses solo & orchestral percussion, new music, improvisation, and composition. He is currently a Lecturer of Percussion at the University of Michigan, a position he has held since 2005, and recently completed eight seasons as Assistant Principal Percussionist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where he worked under music directors Neeme Järvi and Leonard Slatkin. He was also previously a member of the New World Symphony in Miami under Michael Tilson Thomas and timpanist with the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland under James Levine.

A committed performer of new & experimental music, Ian is a founding member and co-director of the contemporary music collective New Music Detroit (NMD). In this capacity, he has helped organize a number of alternative classical music events throughout the city of Detroit, including the annual Strange Beautiful Music festival. Recent NMD collaborators include artist-filmmaker Matthew Barney and composer Jonathan Bepler (their feature-length film/opera Khu), Detroit noise band Slither, and composers Alexandra du Bois, Marc Mellits, Virgil Moorefield, and Nico Muhly.

Ianʼs other recent projects include solo recitals at the Detroit Institute of Arts; tours throughout the U.S. and Europe with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, including collaborations with Glenn Kotche (Wilco), Bryce Dessner (The National), DJ-composer Mira Calix, and Kronos Quartet; and performances with the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, and Saint Louis symphony orchestras, the Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Worldwide Chinese Festival Orchestra in Beijing. He can also be heard on recordings on the Arabesque, Electronic Music Foundation, Equilibrium, Koch International, and Naxos labels.

Besides his work as a percussionist, Ian also composes and produces soundtracks for documentary films, collaborating with Detroit Public TV, KDN Films in Detroit and Radiant Features in Los Angeles. His work has been shown on PBS and on display at the Honolulu Academy of Art, the Yale School of Architecture, and the United States Embassy in Berlin, Germany.

Originally from Arlington Heights, IL, Ian is a graduate of the University of Illinois and the Juilliard School. His principal percussion teachers include Jim Ross, Tom Stubbs, Thomas Siwe, William Moersch, and Gregory Zuber. He also studied world percussion and improvisation with Jamey Haddad, Sriram Balasubramanian, and Oussama Naja. Ian currently lives in Minneapolis, MN.