Steve Gorn

Biography

Steve Gorn was born in New York City in 1944 and trained first as a jazz musician and studied composition at Penn State. A 1969 trip to Benares, where he studied with classical musicians including sarangi player Gopal Misra, turned him toward Indian music. He became a disciple of the bansuri master Sri Gour Goswami in Calcutta, and later studied with Pandit Raghunath Seth and Ustad Z. M.

Dagar. Gorn plays the bamboo bansuri, soprano saxophone and clarinet, performing Indian classical ragas as well as improvised and composed new music. His recordings include Asian Journal (1985) with Nana Vasconcelos and Badal Roy, Steel and Bamboo (1993) with flutist Robert Dick, Luminous Ragas (1994), Pampara (1996), Colors of the Mind (2002), Rasika, Pranam and Illuminations. He has recorded or toured with Paul Simon, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Winter, Glen Velez, Richie Havens, Krishna Das and Jai Uttal, and appears on the Grammy-winning Miho: Journey to the Mountain with the Paul Winter Consort.

He has scored work for film, theater, dance and television, including the Academy Award-winning documentary Born into Brothels, and in 2013 received the Pandit Jasraj Rotary Club of Hyderabad award for cross-cultural achievement. At Holland Tunnel Gallery he joined percussionist Hearn Gadbois, with whom he had recorded on Ghost Notation, for "World Rhythms and Music for the Mind" on November 11, 2023.

Practice. North Indian classical ragas on bansuri, including jugalbandi duets; improvised and composed new American music and jazz on soprano saxophone and clarinet.