Bio : Vijay Iyer

Described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway,” VIJAY IYER has carved out a unique path as an influential, prolific, shape-shifting presence in twenty-first-century music. A composer and pianist active across multiple musical communities, Iyer has created a consistently innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last twenty-five years, earning him a place as one of the leading music-makers of his generation.

He received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, the Alpert Award in the Arts, and two German “Echo” awards, and was voted Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times in the last decade. He has been praised by Pitchfork as "one of the best in the world at what he does," by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.”

Iyer’s musical language is grounded in the rhythmic traditions of South Asia and West Africa, the African American creative music movement of the 60s and 70s, and the lineage of composer-pianists from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen. He has released twenty-four albums of his music, most recently UnEasy (ECM Records, 2021), a trio session with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh; The Transitory Poems (ECM, 2019), a live duo recording with pianist Craig Taborn; Far From Over (ECM, 2017) with the award-winning Vijay Iyer Sextet; and A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM, 2016) a suite of duets with visionary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith.

Iyer is also an active composer for classical ensembles and soloists. His works have been commissioned and premiered by Brentano Quartet, Imani Winds, Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and virtuosi Matt Haimowitz, Claire Chase, Shai Wosner, and Jennifer Koh, among others. He 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.

A tireless collaborator, he has written big-band music for Arturo O’Farrill and Darcy James Argue, remixed classic recordings of Talvin Singh and Meredith Monk, joined forces with legendary musicians Henry Threadgill, Reggie Workman, Zakir Hussain, and L. Subramanian, and developed interdisciplinary work with Teju Cole, Carrie Mae Weems, Mike Ladd, Prashant Bhargava, and Karole Armitage.

A longtime New Yorker, Iyer lives in central Harlem with his wife and daughter. He teaches at Harvard University in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies. He is a Steinway artist.

 

THE VIJAY IYER TRIO

Composer-pianist VIJAY IYER (Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts, Department of Music & Department of African and African American Studies) has carved out a unique path as an influential, shape-shifting presence in 21st-century music. His deeply interactive, powerfully expressive musical language is indebted to the composer-pianist lineage from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen, the creative music movement of the 60s and 70s, and rhythmic traditions of South Asia and West Africa. As MinnPost recently observed, “twining composition and improvisation is rightfully his most celebrated métier.” He has released twenty-six widely praised albums; received three Grammy nominations, numerous national and international prizes, and a MacArthur Fellowship; composed for orchestras, soloists, and chamber ensembles; and collaborated with poets, filmmakers, choreographers, and music-makers from across the planet. 

Iyer’s music finds perhaps its purest expression in his most celebrated group, the Vijay Iyer Trio, praised by NPR as “truly astonishing” and by The New York Times as “one of the best bands in jazz.” Iyer’s trio conception, developed over the last 30 years, finds inspiration in the trio music of Ahmad Jamal; the Ellington/Mingus/Roach summit Money Jungle; Andrew Hill’s Smokestack; McCoy Tyner’s 1970s ensembles; the rhythm-section alchemies of James Brown, Fela Kuti, and the Meters; South Asian dance rhythms; and the expressive nuance of chamber music. 

In 2021, an all-star incarnation of Iyer’s trio, now with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, released Uneasy (ECM), which was named one of the best jazz albums of 2021 by Pitchfork, The New Yorker, NPR, the Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. Their widely acclaimed 2024 follow-up, Compassion (ECM), was praised by All Music Guide for its “fresh, intensely interactive, seemingly time-elasticizing approach to the jazz piano trio that is at once bracingly kinetic, intimate, and lyrical.” 

This trio’s music combines Iyer’s attraction to dark colors, elliptical shapes, and plunging momentum with a pronounced sense of shared purpose, equality, and attunement among the musicians. The material includes Iyer’s compositions alongside occasional familiar and obscure covers. Their concerts feature breathtaking, spontaneous variations on their repertoire, full of uncanny synchronies, unpredictable formal shifts, and exuberant playing.

 

“It’s as if this band wants to both seduce you and discomfort you, stripping you of everything but the ability to think and see for yourself” - The New York Times

“It’s a sound that isn’t trying to impress you so much as involve you…a highlight on the acclaimed pianist’s path in and out of jazz.” - Washington Post

“revels in dynamics that are calibrated with great care and, at times, achieve startling force” - Wall Street Journal

“irresistibly listenable… exhales a particular aesthetic history even as it pulls on the pain and anxiety of our present” - Pitchfork

“stellar compositions, performances, and energy… immediately enjoyable music” – Pop Matters

“exquisite… quietly ups the ante on 21st-century modern jazz piano trio excursions.” - DownBeat