ADMISSION & CAMPUS ACCESS:
Admission is free. Reservations are required. Campus access is limited to registered guests and USC students, staff, and faculty with current USC ID.

RSVP

DESCRIPTION:
“Trailblazing…one of his generation’s brightest jazz luminaries”—Time Out New York

Award-winning musician and Harvard professor Vijay Iyer will kick off his residency at USC with an intimate solo piano performance at Newman Recital Hall.

Described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway,” 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 a consistently innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last three decades, earning him a place as one of the leading music-makers of his generation. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, three Grammy nominations, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the Greenfield Prize, a Dutch “Edison” Prize, and two German “Echo” awards; he was also voted DownBeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times. He has been praised by Pitchfork as “one of the best in the world at what he does,” by the L.A. Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.” 

Iyer’s musical language is indebted to the great composer-pianists from Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk to Alice Coltrane and Geri Allen, the rhythmic traditions of South Asia and West Africa, and the African American creative music movement of the ’60s and ’70s. He is also a prolific composer for classical ensembles and soloists, and has collaborated extensively with visual artists, filmmakers, poets, authors, and choreographers. His solo concerts survey his 30-year catalog of compositions, interspersed with music by his heroes, all strung together into spontaneous suites that dig deep into the present moment. As on his recent albums Defiant Life (2025), Trouble (2024), Compassion (2024), Love in Exile (2023), and Uneasy (2021), Iyer's music harnesses the emotions of our times.

Iyer’s residency will also include a masterclass on Wednesday, February 26, and a lecture on Thursday, February 27.

Related events:

Musicmaking Forum: Creativity, Collaboration, Community
Masterclass with Vijay Iyer 
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, at 5 p.m.
Ramo Recital Hall 
For more info, click HERE.

Musicalities: Scenes of Sonic Social Life
A Lecture by Vijay Iyer
Thursday, February 27, 2025, at 6 p.m.
Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall, Doheny Memorial Library 240
For more info, click HERE.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by Erin Graff Zivin (Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Comparative Literature) and Jonathan Leal (English). Co-sponsored by the USC Dornsife Experimental Humanities Lab and the USC Thornton School of Music.

Photo: Ebru Yildiz