Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer is one of the most acclaimed jazz pianists and composers of his generation, a MacArthur Fellow whose music binds improvisation to a deep engagement with rhythm, cognition, and social conscience. Born in Albany, New York in 1971 to Indian immigrant parents and raised near Rochester, he studied violin as a child, earned a degree in mathematics and physics from Yale in 1992, and completed an interdisciplinary doctorate in the cognitive science of music at the University of California, Berkeley. He was voted DownBeat magazine international critics poll Jazz Artist of the Year four times, and his honors include a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, three Grammy nominations, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. In 2014 he joined the Harvard faculty as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts, with a joint appointment in music and African American studies. His trio with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, documented on the ECM albums Uneasy (2021) and Compassion, stands among his signature groups.