Vijay Iyer

Artist Website

Born in Albany, New York in 1971, Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer has been described by Pitchfork as “one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today” and by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star”. He was named DownBeat magazine’s 2015 Artist of the Year and 2014 Pianist of the Year, and in 2013 was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”). In 2014 he began a permanent appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in the music department at Harvard University.

The New York Times observed, “There’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the pianist Vijay Iyer.” He has released twenty albums covering remarkably diverse terrain, most recently for ECM. The latest include Break Stuff(2015), featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio (with Marcus Gilmore on drums and Stephan Crump on bass – the 2015 Jazz Group of the year in the DownBeat International Critics Poll) which earned a five-star rating in DownBeat and was hailed by PopMatters as “the best band in jazz”; Mutations (2014), featuring Iyer’s music for piano, string quartet and electronics, which “extends and deepens his range… showing a delicate, shimmering, translucent side of his playing” (Chicago Tribune); and Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi (2014), “his most challenging and impressive work, the scintillating score to a compelling film by Prashant Bhargava” (DownBeat), performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble and released by ECM on DVD and BluRay. In preparation is a duo album with trumpet player Wadada Leo Smith.

Iyer’s accomplishments extend well beyond his recordings. His recent composer commissions include Playlist for an Extreme Occasion (2012) written for Silk Road Ensemble; Dig The Say, written for Brooklyn Rider; and Mozart Effects (2011) and Time, Place, Action (2014) for the Brentano String Quartet. His orchestral work Interventions was commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 2007 under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies. A polymath whose career has spanned the sciences, the humanities and the arts, Iyer received an interdisciplinary PhD in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley; his writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, both popular and academic.

Vijay Iyer

Uneasy

The Transitory Poems

The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles

Far From Over

a cosmic rhythm with each stroke

Break Stuff

Radhe Radhe – Rites of Holi

Mutations

Far Side