Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer has carved out a unique path as an influential, prolific, shape-shifting presence in 21st-century music. A composer and pianist active and revered across multiple musical communities, Iyer has created an innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last three decades. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, three Grammy nominations, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. His newest albums are Defiant Life (ECM, 2025), with visionary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith; Compassion (ECM, 2024), featuring drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh; Trouble (BMOP/sound, 2024), a composer portrait album comprising three of his orchestral works, including the titular violin concerto performed by Jennifer Koh; and Love in Exile (Verve, 2023), his Grammy-nominated collaboration with Arooj Aftab and Shahzad Ismaily. The New York Times observed, “Iyer’s music has always been both intelligent and unpretentious, complex without being opaque; [he] ponders a phrase with obsessive rumination, unveiling layers of shifting, subtle emotion, before letting it fly with joyous abandon.” Iyer is a professor at Harvard University.