Trained as a violinist, Keeril Makan has received degrees in music and religion from Oberlin and the University of California at Berkeley, and subsequently studied in Helsinki and Paris. His commissions include ones from the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the American Composers Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall. His music has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Meet the Composer, and ASCAP. He was awarded the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome for 2008-9. Makan's work has been featured at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco and the MATA Festival in New York, and internationally at the Gaudeamus Festival in the Netherlands, Musica Nova in Finland, and Voix Nouvelles in France. He has collaborated with poet Jena Osman and choreographer Benjamin Levy and frequently works with emerging new music artists such as the Del Sol String Quartet, percussionist David Shively, and soprano Laurie Rubin. His baritone saxophone solo Voice within Voice appears on Brian Sacawa's CD American Voices on Innova. The first CD of his music, In Sound, was released on the Tzadik label in June 2008 with performances by the Kronos Quartet and Paul Dresher Ensemble. Makan is Assistant Professor of Music at MIT and makes his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Current projects include commissions from the California EAR Unit and the Harvard Musical Association.