Vijay Iyer - The Matrix

Reality is that most people — no matter how seemingly separated in geography and society (from Quincy Jones in Los Angeles to Delfeayo Marsalis in New Orleans to Raimundo "Mago do Nordeste" / "Wizard of the Northeast" Sodré in Brazil ... to you, wherever you are, my friend) — are within scant degrees of most other people (the so-called "six degrees of separation" phenomenon) everywhere. The Matrix is a parallel universe of worldlines combining this principle with the most powerful, subtle and wide-ranging recommendation software yet developed: the collective human mind. This is the red pill. No information harvested per FB/Cambridge Analytica.

Worldlines In ~ These People Curate Me

I am curated in these categories by these people. Further info by clicking on curation category buttons.

Worldlines Out ~ I (See Important Above) Curate These People

I am curatable in: 4 categories
I have received: 8 curations
I CURATE THESE PEOPLE IN THESE CATEGORIES > 14 curations

Who I Am & Where I Live

Name: Vijay Iyer
City: Boston
Country: United States

My Life

Biographical: Grammy-nominated composer-pianist VIJAY IYER (pronounced “VID-jay EYE-yer”) was described by Pitchfork as “one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.” He has been voted DownBeat Magazine’s Artist of the Year three times – in 2016, 2015 and 2012 – and Artist of the Year in Jazz Times’ Critics’ Poll and Readers’ Poll for 2017. Iyer was named Downbeat’s 2014 Pianist of the Year, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist. In 2014 he began a permanent appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in the Department of Music at Harvard University.

The New York Times observes, “There’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the pianist Vijay Iyer.” Iyer has released twenty-two albums covering remarkably diverse terrain, most recently for the ECM label. The latest of those is Far From Over (2017), the first from the Vijay Iyer Sextet. The record was ranked #1 in US National Public Radio’s annual Jazz Critics’ Poll, surveying 157 critics. It was named among the best jazz albums of the year in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Slate, and The New York Times, and the only “jazz release” in Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 best records of 2017. Iyer’s Sextet was subsequently voted 2018 Jazz Group of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.

Iyer’s previous ECM releasees include A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (2016), a collaboration with Iyer’s “hero, friend and teacher,” Wadada Leo Smith, which the Los Angeles Times calls “haunting, meditative and transportive”; Break Stuff (2015), with a coveted five-star rating in DownBeat Magazine, featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio, hailed by PopMatters as “the best band in jazz”; Mutations (2014), featuring Iyer’s music for piano, string quartet and electronics, which “extends and deepens his range… showing a delicate, shimmering, translucent side of his playing” (Chicago Tribune); and Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi (2014), “his most challenging and impressive work, the scintillating score to a compelling film by Prashant Bhargava” (DownBeat), performed by International Contemporary Ensemble and released on DVD and BluRay.

Iyer’s trio (Iyer, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Stephan Crump, bass) made its name with three tremendously acclaimed and influential albums: Break Stuff (mentioned above), Accelerando (2012) and Historicity (2009). Accelerando was voted #1 Jazz Album of the Year for 2012 in three separate critics polls surveying hundreds of critics worldwide, hosted by DownBeat, Jazz Times, and Rhapsody, respectively, and also was chosen as jazz album of the year by NPR, the Los Angeles Times, PopMatters, and Amazon.com. The Vijay Iyer Trio was named 2015 Jazz Group of the year in the DownBeat International Critics Poll, with Iyer having earlier received an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the 2012 Downbeat 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), as well as a “quadruple crown” in the JazzTimes extended critics poll (winning Artist of the Year, Acoustic/Mainstream Group of the Year, Pianist of the Year, and Album of the Year). Iyer received the 2012 and 2013 Pianist of the Year Awards and the 2010 Musician of the Year Award from the Jazz Journalists Association, and the 2013 ECHO Award (the “German Grammy”) for best international pianist. Historicity was a 2010 Grammy Nominee for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, and was named #1 Jazz Album of 2009 in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Metro Times, National Public Radio, PopMatters.com, the Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll, and the Downbeat International Critics Poll, and the trio won the 2010 ECHO Award for best international ensemble.

Iyer’s 2013 collaboration with poet Mike Ladd, Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project, based on the dreams of veterans of color from America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was hailed as #1 Jazz Album of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and described in JazzTimes as “impassioned, haunting, [and] affecting.” Along with their previous projects In What Language? (2004) and Still Life with Commentator (2007), Holding It Down rounded out a trilogy of politically searing albums about post-9/11 American life. These projects were hailed as “unfailingly imaginative and significant” (JazzTimes) and praised for their “powerful narrative invention and ravishing trance-jazz… an eloquent tribute to the stubborn, regenerative powers of the human spirit” (Rolling Stone).

Iyer’s accomplishments extend well beyond his recordings. His recent composer commissions include “Torque” (2018) written for So Percussion; “Asunder” (2017) written for Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; “Trouble” (2017) for Violin and Orchestra, written for Jennifer Koh and premiered at Ojai and Tanglewood Music Festivals; “City of Sand” (2017) for A Far Cry plus members of Silk Road Ensemble; “Run,” a solo cello overture to Bach’s Suite in C Major, written for Matt Haimovitz and recorded on his Overtures to Bach (2015); “Bridgetower Fantasy” (2014) for violin and piano, a companion piece to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata, written for Ms. Koh and Shai Wosner; “Playlist for an Extreme Occasion” (2012) written for Silk Road Ensemble (and released on their 2013 album A Playlist without Borders); “Dig The Say,” written for Brooklyn Rider and released on their 2014 album Almanac; “Mozart Effects” (2011) and “Time, Place, Action” (2014) for Brentano String Quartet; “Bruits” (2014) for Imani Winds and pianist Cory Smythe; “Rimpa Transcriptions” (2012) written for Bang on a Can All-Stars; “UnEasy” (2011) commissioned by NYC’s Summerstage in collaboration with choreographer Karole Armitage; “Three Fragments” (2011) for Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. His orchestral work Interventions was commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 2007 under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies. It was praised by The New York Times as “all spiky and sonorous,” and by the Philadelphia City Paper for its “heft and dramatic vision and a daring sense of soundscape.” Other works include Mutations I-X (2005) commissioned and premiered by the string quartet ETHEL; “Three Episodes for Wind Quintet” (1999) written for Imani Winds; a “ravishing” (Variety) score for the original theater/dance work Betrothed (2007); the award-winning film score for Teza (2008) by legendary filmmaker Haile Gerima; a suite of acoustic jazz cues for the sports channel ESPN (2009); and the prize-winning audiovisual installation Release (2010) in collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison. Forthcoming commissions include pieces for Jennifer Koh, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and So Percussion. His concert works are published by Schott Music. An active electronic musician and producer, Iyer displays his digital audio artistry on his own recordings Still Life with Commentator, Holding it Down, Mutations, and Radhe Radhe, and in his remixes for British Asian electronica pioneer Talvin Singh, Islamic punk band The Kominas, and composer-performer Meredith Monk.

Iyer was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, and named one of 2011’s “50 Most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India. Other honors include the Greenfield Prize, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the India Abroad Publisher’s Special Award for Excellence, and numerous critics’ prizes.

Iyer’s many collaborators include creative music pioneers Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Butch Morris, George Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers, William Parker, Graham Haynes, Miya Masaoka, Pamela Z, John Zorn; next-generation artists Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rez Abbasi, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Liberty Ellman, Steve Lehman, Matana Roberts, Tyshawn Sorey; Dead Prez, DJ Spooky, Himanshu Suri of Das Racist, High Priest of Antipop Consortium, DJ Val Jeanty, Karsh Kale, Suphala, Imani Uzuri, and Talvin Singh; filmmakers Haile Gerima, Prashant Bhargava, and Bill Morrison; choreographer Karole Armitage; and poets Mike Ladd, Amiri Baraka, Charles Simic, and Robert Pinsky.

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 published in Journal of Consciousness Studies, Wire, Music Perception, JazzTimes, Journal of the Society for American Music, Critical Studies in Improvisation, in the anthologies Arcana IV, Sound Unbound, Uptown Conversation, The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2010, and The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies. Prior to his permanent appointment at Harvard in 2014, Iyer taught at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the New School. He is the Director of The Banff Centre’s International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, an annual 3-week program in Alberta, Canada. Iyer has served as Director of the International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at The Banff Centre since 2013. He has been featured as Artist-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), the Molde Jazz Festival (Molde, Norway), SF Jazz, and Jazz Middelheim (Antwerp, Belgium), and served as Music Director for the 2017 Ojai Music Festival in southern California. He is a Steinway artist and uses Ableton Live software.

My Media

Website: http://vijay-iyer.com
Instagram: vijayiyer
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sonocentric
Article: http://downbeat.com/news/detail/downbeat-announces-winners-of-2018-critics-poll

Listen on Spotify

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/5G6mxblvRebxmV7Art9Var
Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/1yNJf97Zm6XAUwZvbwaRsx
Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/0dhSPyaXDm6icbX1XlB3rj
Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/1oxpIr4suH9yYpcDNF63ni
Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/2FaaNlVFsJ74lmrOazjZFF

Contact Information

Management/Booking: Management
Stephen Cohen
Music and Art Management, Inc
steve@musicandart.net

Booking Inquiries
USA and Canada
Myles Weinstein
Unlimited Myles, Inc.
myles1@optonline.net

Booking Inquiries
Rest of World
Katherine McVicker
Music Works International
info@musicworksinternational.com

Quotes, Notes & Etc. “Trailblazing… one of his generation’s brightest jazz luminaries” – Time Out New York

“Presto! Here is the great new jazz piano trio.” – The New York Times

“One of the world’s most inventive new-generation jazz pianists” – Guardian (UK)

“[one of] today’s most important pianists… extravagantly gifted… brilliantly eclectic”
– The New Yorker

“The Vijay Iyer Trio has the potential to alter the scope, ambition and language of jazz piano forever.” – Jazzwise (UK)

“One of the best in the world at what he does” – Pitchfork

PROJECTS

VIJAY IYER TRIO
VIJAY IYER SEXTET
FIELDWORK
RADHE RADHE: RITES OF HOLI
HOLDING IT DOWN: THE VETERANS’ DREAMS PROJECT
NEW CLASSICAL & CHAMBER WORKS
VIJAY & WADADA LEO SMITH
VIJAY IYER & CRAIG TABORN
BLIND SPOT WITH TEJU COLE
VIJAY IYER & RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA: RAW MATERIALS

Hey there! Questions? We'll answer them! Need your login info? We've got it! Inaccuracies? Faulty curations by the Ghost in the Machine? Contact us here, or email sparrowroberts@gmail.com. Thank you! (I'm Randy "Pardal/Sparrow" Roberts and I built this matrix!)

EZ INSTRUCTIONS

The matrix is a small world curation network.

It is designed to be coursed through, from node (person/entity) to node to node in a voyage of discovery.

This is universal open curation in series. A 21st century twist on the oldest and most effective means of publicity of all: word-of-mouth.

Curations in series form worldlines, which enter pages via the THEY CURATE ME section and exit via the I CURATE THEM section (above).

The totality of worldlines taken together make up the matrix...a matrix in the original sense of "source", from "mater", Latin for "mother".

We are — per below — real mothers for ya!

All are welcome to curate, and all may decide for themselves whose judgement to trust. One aspect of open curation is that it allows us to see the curations of performing experts in their area, no matter how obscure this area might be, areas where perhaps there are no professional curators.

After a page has been created (it can be as simple or as complex as you like) you create arts-related categories for which you can be recommended. Examples can be seen at the bottom of every member page, including your own.

Categories for which you can be recommended are created in your "THEY CURATE ME" section. Then when somebody clicks on one of your categories, their image and a link back to their own page will appear there. You will appear in their "I CURATE THEM" section.

When YOU click on somebody else's category in their "THEY CURATE ME" section on their page, your image and a link back to your own page will appear there. THEY will appear in YOUR "I CURATE THEM" section.

If wish merely to curate (recommend), simply don't create categories for yourself. Whatever the case, people getting to your page can see who you think is great. The people you think are great can see you think they are great!

You can put Spotify album or artist links in the Spotify fields; people on your page can click on these links and the Spotify web player will open up to your music.

You can put your music into your own Matrix player by clicking on the Add Music button at the top of your (or any) page.

You can embed YouTube videos into your own video page by clicking on the Add Videos button at the top of your (or any) page.

Join from the top of any page.

If you find yourself sufficiently moved by this artist, click on categories for which they may be recommended (within their THEY CURATE ME area) above. The artist, together with the categories for which you are recommending them, will then appear on your own I CURATE THEM list.

ABOUT THE MATRIX

Wow! Very impressive! ... I love what you've built here... Derek Sivers, founder, CD Baby

If Myspace Music had been set up like this they'd be using it to hear Hermeto Pascoal in Andromeda by now! ... Sparrow Roberts, founder, The Matrix

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORLD'S FIRST EVER SMALL WORLD CURATION NETWORK?

Any artist (in any field) in any place in the world can be potentially reached by anybody from anywhere.

BY WHAT WIZARDRY?

We've all heard of six degrees of separation, more properly called a small world network. Within six or so steps we can move through a chain of people knowing other people to just about anybody on the planet.

SIMPLY CHANGE "KNOW" TO "RECOMMEND"

In exactly the same way, step by step we can move through chains of ARTISTS RECOMMENDING (curating) OTHER ARTISTS to to just about any artist on the planet.

LIKE THIS...

Quincy Jones recommends artists under his wing including stellar young Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez. Alfredo recommends a fabulous multinstrumentalist he plays with, Munir Hossn. Two more steps and we've reached Raimundo Sodré, lost in Bahia:

Raimundo Sodré Now

Dengo

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Share | Report | 57,271 plays | 9,507 views

DICTATED SILENCE

Sodré's meteoric major-label career was crushed and his life threatened by the Brazilian dictatorship years ago, sending him into a 19 year exile. He became almost impossible to find and hear.

MUSIC FALLS LIKE RAIN

But now lines of everbranching interlinked recommendations rise from Bahia to form a (small world) network rounding the planet like the arboreal canopy of a vast Amazonian rainforest. When the dictatorship ground Sodré into the dust, they unwittingly planted a seed.

IS THE MATRIX AN ALTERNATE REALITY?

The original meaning of "matrix" is "source", from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!

Pre-Brazil we "rescued" unpaid royalties for performers and composers including Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, Philip Glass, Mongo Santamaria, Airto Moreira, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Jim Hall, Robb Royer of Bread, Speedo & the Cadillacs, and many more! Recording by WXPN's Kim Junod

DOES THE MATRIX WATCH YOU?

Zero surreptitious tracking, data mining and data brokerage per Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, et al.

PATHWAYS ACCESSIBLE VIA ANY NODE BELOW, OR VIA A CATEGORY, OR USE THE SEARCH BOX:

Our logo is a sugarcane cutter, representative of the fact that the great root of Brazil's music is planted Congo-deep in the massapê -- rich alluvial soil -- of the sugarcane plantations of Bahia: