Critically acclaimed jazz trio to perform at Purdue

March 20, 2013  


Vyler Katz

Vijay Iyer Trio
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Vijay Iyer Trio will perform at Purdue University's Loeb Playhouse at 8 p.m. April 5.

The performance, features Vijay Iyer on piano, Stephan Crump on bass; and Marcus Gilmore, drums. Don Seybold, host of "Inside Jazz" on WBAA will host a preshow discussion, and pianist Judd Danby will discuss the art of the jazz piano trio in Stewart Center, Room 202.

The title track of The Vijay Iyer Trio's most recent release, "Accelerando," is a continuously accelerating whirlwind that could easily be the metaphor for the pace of critical acclaim mounting behind his output.

For more than a decade, Vijay Iyer (pronounced VID-jay EYE-yer), the American-born son of Indian immigrants, has pursued a musical vision grounded in a groove that is powerful and rhythmically intricate, with an incredible improvisational fluidity. In his ear, Thelonious Monk, classical music, dub and electronica, African drumming, and Indian music, merge as dazzling catalysts for his highly interactive trio explorations.

Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Iyer was described by Pitchfork as "one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today," by The New Yorker as one of "today's most important pianists… extravagantly gifted… brilliantly eclectic," and by the Los Angeles Weekly as "a boundless and deeply important young star." His most recent honors include an unprecedented "quintuple crown" in the Down Beat International Critics 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). He also won the $275,000 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the $30,000 Greenfield Prize, all awarded in 2012. And he was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.

A polymath whose career has spanned the sciences, the humanities and the arts, Iyer received an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in the cognitive science of music from the University of California Berkeley. He has published articles in Journal of Consciousness Studies, Wire, Music Perception, Jazz Times and The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2010. In 2013, he became director of Banff Centre's International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, an annual three-week program in Alberta, Canada, founded by piano legend Oscar Peterson.

Tickets are $26 for adults and $19 for children 18 years and younger, Purdue students and Ivy Tech Lafayette students. Tickets are available at the Elliott Hall and Stewart Center box offices at 765-494-3933 or 800-914-SHOW.

Initiated in 1902, Purdue Convocations was one of the first professional performing arts presenters in the United States. Each year, Convocations offers 20-30 performances of widely varying genres: Broadway-style shows, theater, dance, children's theater, world music, jazz, and chamber music, along with rock, pop, country and comedy attractions. Purdue Convocations aims to promote frequent exposure to and familiarity with human cultural expression in a multitude of forms and media.

Contact: Abby Eddy, Purdue Convocations director of marketing, 765-494-9712, aeeddy@purdue.edu

Note to Journalists: Publication-quality photos are available at http://www.convocations.org/press

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