Ian Ding is a versatile performer whose work encompasses solo and 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 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where 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 of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland under James Levine.

A committed performer of new and experimental music, Ian is a founding member and codirector 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 opera / feature film 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 appearances with Glenn Kotche (Wilco), Bryce Dessner (The National), and DJcomposer Mira Calix; and concerts with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, and Saint Louis, 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, outside of Chicago, Ian is a graduate of the University of Illinois and the Juilliard School in New York. His principal percussion teachers include Jim Ross, Tom Stubbs, Thomas Siwe, William Moersch, and Gregory Zuber. He has also studied world music and improvisation with Jamey Haddad, Sriram Balasubramanian, and Oussama Naja. Ian currently lives in Minneapolis, MN.