Vijay Iyer Trio

Saturday, October 11, 2014 at 8:00pm
Crowell Concert Hall

$25 general public; $22 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students

Click here to view photos from this event.

CFA Arts Administration Intern Chloe Jones ’15 talks to Benjamin Zucker ’15 about the Vijay Iyer Trio on the Center for the Arts blog here.

“The Vijay Iyer Trio has the potential to alter the scope, ambition and language of jazz piano forever."
—Jazzwise Magazine (London)

Pre-concert talk at 7:15pm by Benjamin Zucker '15.

Grammy Award-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer was described by Pitchfork as "one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today." Recent honors include a 2013 MacArthur fellowship, a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the 2012 DownBeat International Critics Poll (winning Jazz Artist of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of the Year, and Rising Star Composer categories).

At Wesleyan, Mr. Iyer will perform with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Tyshawn Sorey MA '11. JazzTimes described a recent performance by Mr. Iyer's trio as “intensely improvisational” in which “rhythm was paramount,” and the group’s “precision made possible by their decade of playing together. . . . The fun was in witnessing the group’s distinctive redefinition of the jazz piano trio.”

A polymath whose career has spanned the sciences, the humanities and the arts, Mr. Iyer received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. Named one of the “50 Most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India in 2011, earlier this year Mr. Iyer began a permanent appointment at Harvard University’s Department of Music as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts.

Mr. Iyer’s many collaborators include musicians Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Suphala, DJ Spooky, and John Zorn;  Wesleyan alumni Steve Lehman '00 and Himanshu Suri '07; choreographer Karole Armitage; filmmaker Bill Morrison; and poets Amiri Baraka, Charles Simic, and Robert Pinsky. Mr Iyer’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, and Imani Winds, among others.

“Secret Keeper” is Mr. Crump’s duo collaboration with guitarist Mary Halvorson '02.

A Crowell Concert Series event presented by the Music Department and the Center for the Arts.

This event is also part of the Performing Arts Series.