Vice Provost for the Arts

Keeril Makan is vice provost for the arts and the Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor at MIT, where he provides Institute-wide leadership and strategic direction for the arts. He works in close partnership with academic leaders, arts units, and administrative colleagues across the Institute to support artistic inquiry, teaching, scholarship, and public engagement.

A critically acclaimed composer, Makan’s work has been commissioned, recorded, and performed internationally by leading ensembles and institutions. His music has been recorded by the Kronos Quartet, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and presented at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Tanglewood. His opera Persona premiered at National Sawdust and has been performed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and by the Los Angeles Opera; the Los Angeles Times described the score as “brilliant.”

Makan’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Luciano Berio Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Music Foundation, and ASCAP. His work is widely noted for integrating contemporary technology with expressive depth and has been described by The New Yorker as “empowered by modern technology but haunted by a spirit of immemorial darkness.”

Makan joined the MIT faculty in 2006. He has served in a range of academic leadership roles, including Head of the Music and Theater Arts Section and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. He has contributed to several Institute-wide initiatives, including the Future of the Arts at MIT and the MIT Human Insight Collaborative.

Trained initially as a violinist, Makan earned undergraduate degrees in music composition and religion from Oberlin College and a PhD in music composition from the University of California, Berkeley, with additional study in Helsinki and Paris. He is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.