His works have been described as “harrowing and gripping” (Classical Voice North America), “a powerhouse of the evening” (Chicago Tribune), and “music that simply asserts itself with force and eloquence” (Positive Feedback). Zupko has also received favorable reviews from New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini and the L.A. Times and has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader for his significant compositional activity in Chicago’s new music scene. Zupko has been a featured guest on David Osenberg’s weekly radio program, “Cadenza” (WWFM).
Zupko’s music has been commissioned, premiered, and championed by leading orchestras and ensembles across the United States, including the Grant Park Symphony and Chorus, Minnesota Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, Civitas Ensemble, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Western Brass Quintet, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, American Modern Ensemble, Camerata Chicago, St. Olaf Band, Eighth Blackbird, Coigliano Quartet and the Lincoln Trio. Other significant commissions have come from the Fromm Foundation, the Barlow Endowment and the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival. His works have been featured at Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, Ravinia, Segerstrom Hall, and the Moscow Conservatory, as well as major festivals including the Aspen Music Festival and the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival.
Zupko’s recordings trace an evolving artistic vision that bridges virtuosity, collaboration, and emotional immediacy. His Cedille Records release Eclipse, featuring cellist Wendy Warner and violinist Sang Mee Lee, earned widespread praise for its structural clarity and expressive intensity, with Audiophile Audition calling it “a feast of imagination and heart” and Fanfare noting its “astonishing balance of intensity and lyricism.” His forthcoming Cedille album featuring renowned saxophonist Timothy McAllister, the Civitas Ensemble and ~Nois Saxophone Quartet continues this trajectory, centering on works that explore resonance as both physical phenomenon and emotional touchstone for the ways in which we relate to nature, memory and one another. His music has also been recorded on labels including Bright Shiny Things, Innova, American Modern Recordings, and Crystal Records.
He has received significant support from the Fromm Music Foundation and the Barlow Endowment, and his music has been commissioned by major ensembles including the Grant Park Symphony and Chorus, Minnesota Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony. His awards include first place in the Pacific Symphony’s American Composers Competition, three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (including the first-prize Kaplan Award), the First Music Award from the New York Youth Symphony, and the Jacob Druckman Prize from the Aspen Music Festival. He has been a finalist for the Rome Prize and is a recent recipient of a DCASE Individual Artist Grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
Zupko’s career as a composer and educator is distinguished by residences and teaching posts that have extended his creative vision beyond the concert stage into the community and into the lives of the next generation of musicians. In 2024, Zupko served as FRA Guest Composer at Fermilab, where he developed a custom glass resonance array central to In Sympathy, a work exploring acoustic sympathy as both physical and artistic phenomenon. The resulting project opened new educational pathways for audiences and inspired cross-disciplinary dialogue among scientists, musicians, and the public. A former Composer-in-Residence with the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Zupko served as a leading advocate for collaboration and innovation within Chicago’s contemporary music scene. Zupko currently serves on faculty at DePaul University’s School of Music, where he teaches composition, theory, and analysis, and is Artistic Advisor to Nova Linea Musica, a concert series dedicated to championing forward-thinking work by living composers.
Through his work, Zupko seeks to fuse precision with passion and intellect with immediacy. His music, both rigorous and deeply expressive, reflects an enduring fascination with resonance: between sound and structure, performer and listener, the physical and the metaphysical.