Vijay Iyer
A composer and pianist active and revered across multiple musical communities, Vijay Iyer has created a consistently innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last 25 years, earning him a place as one of the leading music makers of his generation. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, three Grammy® nominations, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the Greenfield Prize, a Dutch “Edison” Prize, two German “Echo” awards, and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was also voted DownBeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times.
Although he is best known for his international career in the jazz world, Iyer has maintained a significant parallel life as a composer of concert works for ensembles and soloists. His compositions have been premiered and/or recorded by Brentano Quartet, Imani Winds, Parker Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, Sō Percussion, International Contemporary Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Oregon Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, and virtuosi Matt Haimowitz, Mishka Rushdie Momen, Claire Chase, Inbal Segev, Sarah Rothenberg, Min Kwon, Shai Wosner, Curtis Stewart, and Jennifer Koh.
Iyer recently served as composer-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall, music director of the Ojai Music Festival, and artist-in-residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. He served as artistic director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music from 2013 to 2020. Iyer has released twenty-six albums covering remarkably diverse terrain.
Iyer received an interdisciplinary PhD in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. Iyer is a tenured professor at Harvard University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies. He lives in New York City.