Vijay ,Iyer
Composer-pianist VIJAY IYER is one of today’s most acclaimed and respected young American jazz
artists. He received the Musician of the Year award in the 2010 Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards,
the 2010 Echo Award (the “German Grammy”) for best international ensemble with his trio, and the
Downbeat Critics Poll for rising star jazz group of the year. His latest recordings on the ACT label include
Solo (2010) and the trio album Historicity (2009). Historicity was named jazz album of the year by The
New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, the annual Village
Voice jazz critics poll, and the Downbeat International Critics Poll. In the past decade, Iyer has won the
Downbeat Poll in multiple categories, the JJA Jazz Award for Up & Coming Musician of the Year, the
CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and numerous
composer commissions.
Iyer has also composed orchestral and chamber works; scored for film, theater, radio and television;
collaborated with poets and choreographers; and joined forces with artists in hip-hop, rock,
experimental, electronic, and Indian classical music. He has performed and recorded with Steve
Coleman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Mike Ladd, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Amiri Baraka, Amina
Claudine Myers, Butch Morris, Oliver Lake, dead prez, Karsh Kale, Talvin Singh, Imani Uzuri, Craig
Taborn, and DJ Spooky, among others. He teaches at Manhattan School of Music, New York University,
The New School, and School for Improvisational Music. His writings appear in Music Perception, Journal
of Consciousness Studies, Current Musicology, JazzTimes, Wire, The Guardian, and the anthologies
Uptown Conversation, Sound Unbound, Arcana IV, and The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2010.
www.vijay-iyer.com