The Vijay Iyer Trio will perform in Guerry Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. CST on Sunday, Oct. 19, as part of the University of the South's Performing Arts Series.
The trio’s original music is influenced by the jazz piano titans such as Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington; the classical sonorities of composers such as Debussy, Bartok, and Ligeti; a wide range of rock, soul, funk, hip-hop, dub, electronica, and African music; and the rhythmic vitality of the music of Iyer's Indian heritage. Howard Reich wrote in the Chicago Tribune: "The three players practically have become a single rhythmic organism...
one of the great rhythm units of the day."
Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer’s honors include a 2013 MacArthur “genius” fellowship, an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the 2012 Down Beat International Critics Poll (Jazz Artist of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of the Year, and Rising Star Composer), a “quadruple crown” in the JazzTimes critics poll, Pianist of the Year honors from the Jazz Journalists Association (2012 and 2013), and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.
A polymath whose career has spanned the sciences, the humanities and the arts, Iyer received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the New School, and he is the director of the Banff Centre’s International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. In 2014 he began a permanent appointment at Harvard University’s Department of Music, as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts.
Tickets are $25/adults, $20/seniors, and $10/students.
The next Performing Arts Series event will be a concert by Attacca String Quartet at 7:30 p.m., Sat. Nov. 1, in Guerry Auditorium.