Vijay Iyer

New York based US jazz pianist, violinist and composer, born in Albany, NY, on 26th october, 1971. He has no formal piano/composing education, but studied violin privately; he received basic composing and improvisational lectures at Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY. He graduated with B.S. in Mathematics & Physics from Yale University, and holds a M.A. in Physics and Ph.D. in Technology and the Arts from the University of California at Berkeley; his research was focused on music and cogitive sciences. Beside ongoing engagements in New York he has played all over the world as a leader and sideman (notable musicians whom he played with include Roscoe Mitchell, Steve Coleman, Amiri Baraka, John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith and many others. His most important collaborator is the saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Beside Jazz music he also composed many classical music works for orchestra and smaller ensembles.