August 2, 2010

Vijay Iyer, an award-winning and internationally acclaimed jazz composer-pianist, will be performing at SAALT’s 10th Anniversary Gala.
After receiving initial training in Western classical music, Vijay began to play the piano by ear in his early childhood years. Iyer began improvising and experimenting on the piano, composing songs in his teenage years. He believes music is about “creating spaces for people to move around in… to offer them possibilities.” He continued his passion for music as he graduated from Yale with a Physics and Math degree and went onto Berkeley to pursue his Ph.D. Vijay is the perfect blend of the East and West, inspired by both Hindustani classical bhajans as well as Western musical icons.
Vijay incorporates both cultural and musical factors into his own style of music. “For me, as a person of color,” he says, “I’ve looked to histories of other communities of color in America as an orienting guideline.” He has performed around the world and has worked with artists such as Karsh Kale, Burnt Sugar, Bill Morrison, Steve Coleman, and many more. Iyer has received the 2003 Alpert Award for the Arts and numerous grants and fellowships from the state of New York. Most recently, he has been named as the 2010 Musician of the Year at the Jazz Journalists Association Annual Jazz Awards. For more information on Vijay Iyer please read this article in the Huffington Post.
Vijay will be performing at SAALT’s Evening Gala, to be held on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 from 6-10 P.M. at The Carnegie Institution for Science located at 1530 P Street NW, Washington DC, 20005, near Dupont Circle. Please purchase tickets at an Early Bird rate of $80. Tickets prices go up to $100 after August 6th. To purchase, please click here.
For more information on this event or SAALT’s 10th Anniversary initiatives, please visit SAALT’s website or email Rehmah Sufi at rehmah@saalt.org

Source: SAALT Blog