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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS CONTACTS September 24, 2019 Aleba Gartner, 212/206-1450 Tickets & Information: 212/854-7799 [email protected] millertheatre.com Lauren Bailey Cognetti, 212/854-1633 [email protected]

"Miller’s utterly indispensable Composer Portraits series reaches its 20th season this year, two decades in which these concerts have made or cemented the reputations of dozens of composers.“ — The Times 9/20/19

Miller Theatre at School of the Arts

continues its 20th season of Composer Portraits with Vijay Iyer

featuring , violin The Knights Vijay Iyer,

Program features a world premiere commissioned by Miller Theatre as part of Columbia University’s "Year of Water" and three New York premieres

Thursday, October 24, 2019, 8:00 P.M. Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street)

Tickets: starting at $20; Students with valid ID: starting at $7

Photo by Kyle Dorosz for Miller Theatre. From Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey: “At Miller Theatre, we have a series, and we have a Composer Portraits series, and brilliant artists like Vijay Iyer demonstrate that the lines between them don’t actually exist. When he improvises at the piano, I am awed by his ability to spin out fully realized compositions in the moment. In this Portrait, Miller audiences have an opportunity to experience an evening of Vijay’s music for string orchestra and piano quartet, including a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh, along with the world premiere of a piece for solo viola that we commissioned.”

Composer Portraits Thursday, October 24, 2019, 8:00 P.M. Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street)

Vijay Iyer (b. 1971)

LISTEN

The New York Times states that “there’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output” of composer, pianist, bandleader, and scholar Vijay Iyer. A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist, and DownBeat Magazine’s Artist of the Year four times, Iyer is creating a modern realization of the practice of American music through his wide-ranging work. Brooklyn-based ensemble The Knights make their Miller debut in this Portrait which includes a world premiere commission as part of Columbia's Year of Water, along with the New York premiere of Iyer's concerto Trouble, written for violinist Jennifer Koh.

PROGRAM: Song for Flint (2019) world premiere, Miller Theatre commission Crisis Modes (2019) New York premiere Trouble (2017) New York premiere The Law of Returns (2017) New York premiere

ARTISTS: Jennifer Koh, violin The Knights Vijay Iyer, piano

Q&A about the Vijay Iyer Portrait with Melissa Smey and Lara Pellegrinelli The path to Vijay Iyer's Composer Portrait How writer Lara Pellegrinelli is rethinking "program notes" https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2019/09/5-questions-to-lara-pellegrinelli-arts- journalist-and-scholar/

Composer Portraits at 20

With this new season, Miller Theatre proudly celebrates the 20th season of its influential Composer Portraits series, called "indispensable" earlier this year by Alex Ross in . For twenty years, Miller Theatre’s flagship series has fostered the creation of new work, served as an incubator for emerging artists and a champion of those not yet well known, and created a community of adventurous listeners.

Upcoming Portraits

ANNEA LOCKWOOD: Yarn/Wire performs a range of the New Zealand-born composer/sound artist's works, including a world premiere commission (11/14)

BRIGHT SHENG: The Columbia alum & MacArthur Fellow performs as pianist and conductor leading Curtis 20/21 in a concert of his works (12/5)

CAROLINE SHAW: Attacca Quartet and Sō Percussion perform the Pulitzer-winning star composer's chamber music from the last decade (2/6)

OSCAR BETTISON: Alarm Will Sound returns to Miller to perform two of the British- American composer's recent chamber concertos (2/20)

DAI FUJIKURA: Champions of Fujikura's music, ICE performs a high-octane program, including a world premiere Miller commission (3/5)

Vijay Iyer vijay-iyer.com

Vijay Iyer (b. 1971) was named Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year for 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018 and Artist of the Year in Jazz Times’ Critics’ Poll and Readers’ Poll for 2017. He received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and a 2011 Grammy nomination. He has released twenty-one albums, including Far From Over (ECM, 2017), with the Vijay Iyer Sextet, which topped numerous year-end critics polls and was cited by Rolling Stone as “2017’s jazz album to beat”; A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM, 2016) in duo with legendary composer-trumpeter , named “Best New Music” by Pitchfork; Break Stuff (ECM, 2015) with the Vijay Iyer Trio, winner of the German Record Critics’ Award for Album of the Year; the live score to the film Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi (ECM, 2014) by filmmaker Prashant Bhargava; and Holding it Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project (, 2013), his third politically searing collaboration with poet-performer , named Album of the Year in the .

Iyer’s compositions have been commissioned and premiered by Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, , Brentano Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, , American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum, Matt Haimowitz, and Jennifer Koh.

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. Iyer is the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at , and the director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.

Miller Theatre millertheatre.com

Now in its 31st season, Miller Theatre at Columbia University is the leading presenter of new music in and one of the most vital forces nationwide for innovative programming. In partnership with Columbia University School of the Arts, Miller is dedicated to producing and presenting unique events, with a focus on contemporary and early music, jazz, opera, and multimedia performances. Founded in 1988, Miller Theatre has helped launch the careers of myriad composers and ensembles over the years, serving as an incubator for emerging artists and a champion of those not yet well known in the United States. A four-time recipient of the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming, Miller Theatre continues to meet the high expectations set forth by its founders—to present innovative programs, support the development of new work, and connect creative artists with adventurous audiences.

Major support for Miller Theatre’s 2019-20 Season is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

Major support for Composer Portraits is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Columbia University’s Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall.

Directions and information are available online at millertheatre.com or via the Miller Theatre Box Office at 212.854.7799.

For further information, press tickets, photos, and to arrange interviews, please contact Aleba & Co. at 212/206-1450 or [email protected].

For photos, please contact Lauren Bailey Cognetti, 212/854-1633; [email protected].

Copyright © 2019 Aleba & Co., All rights reserved.

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