something to take away
Galang
Vijay Iyer and a comment about him in Last.fm
VIJAY IYER (VID-jay EYE-yer) is is a pianist, composer, bandleader, producer, electronic musician, and writer based in New York City. One of today's most acclaimed young jazz artists, he has released thirteen albums, most recently "Historicity," which was named #1 jazz album of 2009 in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, NPR, and the annual Village Voice jazz critics poll.
In recent years, Iyer won the Downbeat Magazine International Critics' Poll in the Rising Star Jazz Artist, Composer, and Pianist categories, was named Up & Coming Musician of the Year in the JJA Jazz Awards, and received the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and numerous composer commissions.
In 2003, he collaborated with poet and producer Mike Ladd on "In What Language?", a song cycle about the post-9/11 world. His oratorio with Ladd, "Still Life with Commentator," was commissioned by Brooklyn Academy of Music for its 2006 Next Wave Festival.
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. His employers have included Steve Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Amiri Baraka, Butch Morris, Oliver Lake, dead prez, Karsh Kale, Talvin Singh, Imani Uzuri, and DJ Spooky, among others.
An item about him on NPR is also revealing
Over the past decade, Iyer has established himself as one of the freshest, most compelling jazz leaders in the field, often collaborating with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa to combine elements of South Indian classical music with traditional Western jazz. Though he has degrees in both math and physics, [plus a Ph. D. in "Technology and the Arts"] Iyer says the mathematical components of his compositions come more from the music of South India than from anything he learned in the classroom.