Susie Ibarra

About

Susie Ibarra won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Music, a fitting milestone for a percussionist and composer who has spent decades weaving together avant garde jazz, Philippine kulintang traditions, and field recordings of endangered indigenous music. Named one of SPIN's 100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music and a repeat winner in the Downbeat polls, she plays with a rare range, moving between drum kit, sarunay, and eight rowed kulintang gongs with equal fluency. She has performed and recorded alongside a staggering list of collaborators, from John Zorn and Pauline Oliveros to Yo La Tengo and Thurston Moore, and has taken her work to Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and MoMA. As a composer, Ibarra draws from jazz, classical, opera, and Mindanao gong traditions, often folding in field recordings she has gathered during research trips across the Philippines and along the Ganges River. Her 2004 album Folkloriko, dedicated to a day in the life of a Filipino migrant worker, is a good entry point into how she thinks. She also co founded Song of the Bird King, a project focused on preserving indigenous Philippine music and documenting the conservation of the near extinct Philippine eagle.