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

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DESCRIPTION:
“There’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the pianist Vijay Iyer.”—New York Times 

In conjunction with USC Thornton’s Music@RushHour weekly concert series, award-winning composer, pianist, and Harvard professor Vijay Iyer will lead a public masterclass titled “Musicmaking Forum: Creativity, Collaboration, Community.” USC Thornton students and student ensembles will perform original works-in-progress for Iyer, who will provide teaching on form, performance, and more.

This event is part of Iyer’s three-day residency at USC, which includes a performance on Tuesday, February 25, and a lecture on Thursday, February 27. 

Bio:
Vijay Iyer, Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, is a musician and scholar who has been described by the New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway.” The composer-pianist has earned a place as one of the leading music-makers of his generation. Iyer’s honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. His newest album, Compassion, features his acclaimed trio with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh. His lush, expansive collaboration with Arooj Aftab and Shahzad Ismaily, Love in Exile, received two GRAMMY nominations and was named among the best albums of the year in Pitchfork and the New York Times. Iyer’s scholarship dwells at the intersections of music studies, Black studies, and the sciences.

Related events:

Vijay Iyer in Concert - Solo Piano
Tuesday, February 25, 2025, at 7:30 p.m.
Newman 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.