Music Credits: “NY” from the Cd  Soul Sand composed and performed by Kosta T. used courtesy of the Free Music Archive. 

“Trouble” performed by Jennifer Koh and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, “Asunder” and “Crisis Modes” all composed by Vijay Iyer the cd Vijay Iyer: Trouble and performed and released by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project led by Gil Rose.

“Combat Breathing” composed by Vijay Iyer and performed by the Vijay Iyer Trio from the album Uneasy released by ECM Records. 

Jo Reed: From the National Endowment for the Arts, this is Art Works, I’m Josephine Reed. 

You’re listening to “Trouble” from the cd “Vijay Iyer: Trouble”  recorded by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project with Jennifer Koh led by Gil Rose.  Vijay Iyer  is a pianist, composer, and MacArthur Fellow whose numerous collaborations and solo projects span a range of styles, he is probably best known as an innovative, versatile and prolific jazz artist with 23 acclaimed jazz albums to his name. But Vijay Iyer has had a parallel career: for years, he has also made significant contributions to the world of contemporary classical music through his many compositions.  And the recently released "Vijay Iyer: Trouble," is a great example of this—his first orchestral music CD, marking another milestone in his far-reaching career. From his groundbreaking collaborations to his innovative compositions, Vijay Iyer continually pushes the boundaries of multiple musical genres. And I’ll be talking  with Vijay about this. And We’ll also be exploring his background in classical music, his immersion into jazz, and the profound and lasting influence of Black music and Black musicians on his work. 

Vijay Iyer, Thank you for joining me. You actually remind me a little bit of Alexander Hamilton in Lin-Manuel Miranda's play. You are nonstop. I’m looking over <laughter> everything you've done. And I wonder “Does this man sleep?” <laughs> I don't understand. 

Vijay Iyer: I hope it ends less tragically for me. 

Jo Reed: <laughs> Yes, as do I. <laughs> Your CD, “Vijay Iyer: Trouble”, was just released by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, headed by Gil Rose. This marked your debut recording as an orchestral composer, which is both surprising and not. For those who only know your work in jazz, can you just share your background in classical music with us? 

Vijay Iyer: Well, I grew up playing violin as well as piano, but one was with lessons and the other wasn't. So, I had classical violin lessons growing up. I started when I was three years old on Suzuki, which many people do, on violin. Meanwhile, my sister started on piano at the same time. This is back in <laughs> 1974. So, it didn't take long for me to want to start banging on her piano. So those two things then kind of proceeded in parallel for my entire youth, both the kind of well-regulated and rigorous training in Western classical music. I played a lot of solo and chamber and orchestral repertoire, and I as a budding, I don't know, exploratory music maker, I just followed my ear on the piano and figured things out. Tried to imitate what I heard on the radio and elsewhere and started to learn music theory when I was 12 or something, 

Jo Reed: When did jazz come into the picture?

Vijay Iyer: I got into jazz when I was about 14 through our high school. Our high school had a nice music program, and it was a public high school in Fairport, New York, a suburb of Rochester. So I think being able to play music every day in school, starting the day as the concert master <laughs> for the high school orchestra and then ending the day as the pianist in the jazz ensemble. Also, I was in a youth orchestra,  a community-wide youth orchestra, and I was studying concertos, trying to learn Mendelssohn and Bruch and Mozart concertos, and “Introduction in Rondo Capriccioso” by Saint-Saëns, and also playing all this orchestral repertoire. So, I was exposed to this whole range of stuff.

Jo Reed: When did you focus on jazz?

Vijay Iyer:  In college, I really pursued Black music, basically. I was playing piano and writing music. I was trying to imitate anyone from Joe Henderson to McCoy Tyner to Cecil Taylor. <laughter> Sun Ra. Anybody I could hear. I used to go down in New York City to hear live music during college. When I was 20, I moved to Oakland, California for grad school and became kind of more fully in the jazz scene there pretty quickly. I had by then quit violin, and so I figured that was sort of done for me. I didn't imagine that I'd be coming back to so-called classical music in any way. I was already working with a huge range of people when I was in the Bay Area. I was in a hip-hop band. I was playing all this avant-garde, so-called <laughs> free improvisation. I was writing my own music, leading a band, touring with Steve Coleman, and I was starting to study electronic music and some of these academic, more like research disciplines around music perception and cognition. So I was just absorbing as much as I could from every direction. Then when I came to New York, I just was not afraid to go hang out with Imani Winds, and Ethel, the string quartet, and try some stuff that was very different in architecture from the typical jazz record. I was making albums by then, and they were called jazz albums. They featured improvisation and focused on rhythm and groove and spontaneity and solos and stuff. But they were structured in slightly different ways, I would say. It wasn't just like I was writing tunes and we're playing solos on tunes. It was a bit different, the way it was organized.

Jo Reed: Was there a record or project that you were involved with that opened up the classical world for you again.

Vijay Iyer: I think the first project of mine….because I was also working with a lot of poets. So actually, I'd say that the first project I made that was really kind of a different format and different scope or something than the albums I had made before was “In What Language?” which is a collaboration with the poet Mike Ladd that came out in 2003. That premiered here in New York at the Asia Society. We did three major works in that vein, I'd say.

Jo Reed: I don't mean to interrupt, but when you say major works in that vein—what do you mean—what is that vein 

Vijay Iyer: Right. I was making music that would accommodate these poems, and some of these poems had an underlining narrative, and some of them were just kind of impressionistic. But they're all sort of spoken from the perspective of these different characters. Some of the pieces were through-composed, some of them were almost ambient or environmental. So that, I think, put me on the radar in a different way for people who saw me as a kind of jazz weirdo. I was in the sort of jazz world, but I was definitely a weirdo in that world. I think when people heard that, they saw some other potential, and that's when I started getting some other people interested in working with me. 

Jo Reed: Who did you begin to work with?

Vijay Iyer:  Not long after that, I was commissioned to do this project with Ethel, which is “Mutations”.that premiered in 2005, and that was recorded finally in 2014.  I also got an orchestra commission not long after that, from ACO, American Composers Orchestra. So that was in 2007. It was step by step, kind of concurrent to my path in the jazz universe, I was doing these things that not only didn't fall into that category,but were completely invisible to people in that world. People didn't know I was doing that, and also weren't getting recorded, like these notated chamber and orchestral works were accumulating. 

Jo Reed: When did you begin composing for orchestra?

So, “Interventions” was the first orchestra piece. That was in 2007. Then I did this piece, “Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi”, in 2013, with the filmmaker Prashant Bhargava. That's for a large chamber ensemble and performed live with a film. We got to do that at BAM, here in New York, at Brooklyn Academy of Music. I remember Jennifer Koh came to that, and she said “Hey, I want to ask you something.” <laughs> By then, I had written a couple of pieces for her. 

Jo Reed: She's a violinist, for people who don't know. 

Vijay Iyer: Right. Once she saw that work, she asked me if I wanted to write a concerto for her, and that was at the end of 2014. Two years later, it was actually underway. “Trouble” which is the violin concerto  premiered at Ojai, in 2017, when I was the music director for Ojai. 

(music up)

Vijay Iyer So, little by little, I was suddenly in that world. It just kind of sprouted up from these different collaborations that happen and these different relationships that came about by virtue of being in New York. 

Jo Reed: How did you come together with Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, or BMOP? First of all, they're such a unique institution, because they really understand that recording new music is as vital as composing it and performing it. So, bless them and everything they do. 

Vijay Iyer: Yes. 

Jo Reed: How did you come together with them? 

Vijay Iyer: I think it was through Jenny, because actually, first they programmed “Trouble”, the violin concerto. They put it on a concert, and then they organized a recording session after the concert. So they got it up to speed to perform it, which is the best way to rehearse something, of course. They were well suited to record it. So that happened in, I want to say, December of 2019. 

Jo Reed: Well, let's talk about how the CD came together. Tell me that? Because it's three distinct pieces of music. “Trouble” is sort of the centerpiece, the 30-minute concerto. But let's talk about your process for putting this together?

Vijay Iyer: Yes. Once “Trouble” had been recorded, then Gil wanted to know what else there was to sort of round this out. He said “No rush. We'll figure it out.” In 2017, I'd also written this chamber orchestra piece for Orpheus, called “Asunder”. It was written for an orchestra that doesn't use a conductor. So I wanted it to have almost like a simplicity to it so that they could just groove and have some fun with it. Really that the rhythmic impulse had to come from within the ensemble. But then what I tend to do in these pieces is test out things that I often do with my bands. These rhythmic transformations that I'll do with a drummer like Marcus Gilmore, or Tyshawn Sorey, because we can. Because it's sort of like advancing the art of the rhythm section. But then I wanted to see can an orchestra do these things that we do? So, that's sort of been the impulse to a lot of these.  

(music up)

Vijay Iyer: I think the thing about trying to make an orchestra groove is that it basically-- this piece became a series of dances. They're all invitations to move. So, that's what that piece is, the opening piece on the album, “Asunder”, also written in 2017. In 2019, I was invited by LA Philharmonic. They have this “Green Umbrellas” new music series. They invited me to write something. So I did this piece for strings and percussion. I started with something I do at the piano, which is almost this impromptu, spontaneous creation, that generated this harmonic progression. I'd never done this before, but I transcribed that and orchestrated it <laughs> for strings. I wanted to hear what that would sound like. So that's the center movement of this other piece that's called “Crisis Modes.” 

Jo Reed: So the three pieces that comprise the CD recorded by BMOP are “Asunder”, the violin concerto “Trouble” and “Crisis Mode”. 

(music up)

Jo Reed:  I'm curious how you view your role as a composer in contemporary music? Do you see yourself as a storyteller, as a commentator, or just something else entirely? 

Vijay Iyer: It's an interesting question, because that keeps evolving for me. In particular, I think I even say this in the album notes. All these pieces were   kind of caught up with an idea of Americanness. I think coming of age, especially as a South Asian American, the child of non-Western immigrants, so much of my life was about proving that I was American. So much of my artistic life has been about that, has been about claiming a seat at the table, claiming a right to be an artist in public in this country, in particular. It couldn't be taken for granted. It had to be built, it had to be claimed, it had to be seized, <laughs> in a way. It had to be defined, it had to be articulated in those years, in the ‘90s and early 2000s, what is it to be an artist of color, and particularly someone with roots outside the West, in a time when there hadn't been very many such people visible in public, except for, of course, the vast legacy of Black music and Black musicians, who have been the backbone of American culture for as long as there's been American culture. So, part of it for me was like “What is my relationship to all of that? What do I have to offer it? What does it mean for me to say I'm a jazz musician?” For example. “Can I earn the trust of that community? Can I find space for myself and be welcomed in that community?” And I have. I mean, that was earned, it took time, and I am still vastly indebted to Black artists and Black mentors, Black love <laughs> that I've received over many years. So my relationship, then, to Americanness is sort of not so straightforward, I would say, and particularly because what I've learned from especially elders like Wadada Leo Smith and Amiri Baraka, both of whom I was mentored by, and continue to be with Wadada. Nation is not what holds us. Basically, having a kind of internationalist perspective on what we do, and who we are, which is to say we speak from this place, but we need not be of it. Our community is larger than that, and it's not defined by that. So all of that is to say I think being an artist in public has helped me ask and answer these questions for myself. I hope it's also offered, for others, a kind of space of affirmation, or a space of where they feel seen and heard, as where others feel seen and heard, where people who don't necessarily feel like they belong anywhere might find a space where they can be held, where they can be understood, where they might find the strength to carry on. 

Jo Reed: I don't mean to be reductive, but that's so much what jazz is. 

Vijay Iyer: That’s right.

Jo Reed: I know the word jazz is problematic. I've never talked to a jazz musician who liked the word. 

Vijay Iyer: That's right, yeah. 

Jo Reed: It's an extraordinary music that has such a deep history--

Vijay Iyer: Yes. 

Jo Reed: -and at its best, is always pushing forward. 

Vijay Iyer: Right, it's a music with no limits. That's the thing. The reason that so many people in the history of that music have rejected that word is because it's a word that delimits what they are capable of. It’s a narrow frame. So, understanding that that word has always been contentious, and that artists have not always been on the same page about it, even. But I was mentored by a series of musicians who had very little use for that term, even as we found ourselves playing at jazz festivals and in jazz clubs and being written about in jazz magazines. 

Jo Reed: And getting jazz awards. 

Vijay Iyer: Yes, <laughs> indeed. I got a few of those, it's true. 

Jo Reed: <laughs> I would love to have you talk about the distinction between composition and improvisation? As you think about your music. 

Vijay Iyer: Well, it's a question that comes up a lot. I think it's a distinction that's unique to the West. So, part of it is to ask why that question is there, and part of why the question is there is because the entire economy of Western music is constructed to support composition and to revoke the value of improvisation. So it created that distinction, which otherwise was not a distinction, <laughs> before the idea of, say, copyright, or before the idea of royalties. All of which depends on the “Fixity” of a work. This is a legal term that gets used. Like, is this work a thing? <laughs> Is it repeatable? Does it exist <laughs> in this way that I can point to it, I can look at it on a piece of paper, for example. Whereas what it is as an artist, as a person who makes music, is like there's ideas, and then there's ideas I write down, and then there's ideas I don't write down. The only reason it's useful is for posterity. It's not really a useful distinction in the present. I will say that there is a benefit to writing things down. For example, what if you want 80 musicians to play together in an organized way? Then maybe writing something down will help them <laughs> do that. So that is where the plotting of an event, or the planning out of a series of musical events is meaningful and necessary. But it doesn't have to be the distinction that defines anything.

Jo Reed: Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I'm wondering for you as a creator, when you're writing something for Ethel, say, or Silk Road, you have to present them with something, and you're not going to be on the stage with them playing, most of the time, I would think. So there has to be a specificity in the score that you present them  whereas the kind of collaborativeness and flow that can happen when you're performing your own music with jazz musicians. 

Vijay Iyer:  Well, when I first started working with string quartets, I mean, I worked with Ethel, I worked with Brentano String Quartet. They commissioned a couple of works for me as well. Actually, in all those pieces, I played in them. So then it was actually about trying to figure out what we could do together, knowing that they had a very different skill set and operating procedure than I did. Basically, with me, it's like give me four bars of notated music, and I'll spin 15 minutes of music out of <laughs> it. As a player, that's what we do, we do stuff like that. With them, you have to specify everything about every sound. They do have interpretive skills. If you look at Bach scores, they're, what in contemporary terms, you would describe as indeterminate. <laughs> There's stuff there that's not specified. How do you play it? How fast do you play it? How loud? Can you vary the tempo? That's totally up to the performer. That's a skill that is then cultivated in that world, is like how to interpret notation. You make a choice about that. So that's where the same creative impulse dwells in these players, is in the how, not in the what. So it's sort of about tapping into that “How?” for them. How fast? How loud? Also, how do you play together? So I decided to write pieces that tapped into and pushed the limits of what they already knew how to do, by just incorporating some processes, some real-time kind of processes into the works. But then they have to bring the kind of attunement and listening strategies that they bring to chamber music, which is how do you play together? So, it's not just cacophony, it's actually very relational choices they're making and when musicians find themselves having to make a choice in the moment of performance, that really pins them to the present. So then we're really in it together. 

 Jo Reed: Well, you yourself play in sextets and duos, solo and trios, and your trio has had a few iterations. But currently it's bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, who you've played with for 20-something years. This is a powerhouse trio. Two CDs, “Uneasy” and “Compassion”, both are wonderful. 

Vijay Iyer: Well, thank you. 

Jo Reed: Can you describe a little bit what happens when the three of you play together? Because it feels like magic <laughs> when you're listening. 

Vijay Iyer: It felt that way when we first played together as a trio,actually. It was like “Wow, this has a kind of electricity to it.” I mean, we'd all played before in different configurations. Obviously, like you said, I've worked kind of non-stop with Tyshawn <laughs> since he was 20 years old. So we have a bond that's pretty unbreakable at this point. It's like family, musically. So that means that we can move very quickly. In particular, Tyshawn has these unparalleled gifts. Just the way he hears is virtuosic. He immediately knows everything about it. In an instant, he knows all the pitches, and he can relate to it immediately. He starts co-creating with you immediately. And then I found out that Linda’s also like that. She has these top-notch listening skills that makes her able to perceive everything that's happening in the moment. So then, I guess what I'm saying is that it's really easy to play with them because they have these gifts of perception that they have then cultivated and channeled into their musicianship and musicality. They're also just both fearless. And then, lastly, they're also both composers themselves, which means that they have a composerly perspective on music. It's not just about playing to show off. It's actually about sculpting and shaping what's happening so that it goes somewhere, and so that it matters. All of that, it makes it very, very easy and joyous, whenever we're able to come together, which is, nowadays, pretty hard to do, because they are so in demand. Their own careers have really taken off, obviously. But we do get to come together several times a year and it's always a thrill. 

(music up)

Jo Reed: For us as well. I wonder how you introduce new songs into the trio? Since so much of the music you make is that “Spontaneous composition,” to quote Roscoe Mitchell. <laughter> What's the process by which you sort of introduce new music and how you come together to flesh it out? 

Vijay Iyer: I've made a bunch of trio music over the years, as you know. The funny thing about it is that it's hard to write <laughter> for a trio. 

Jo Reed: You sure do it <laughs>. 

Vijay Iyer: Thank you. I mean, I guess what's hard about it is when you have a larger group, or even a quartet, you can kind of hear that there are these things that people are doing together, like in unison, for example, that then signals to the ear that “Oh yeah, this was planned.” Some part of this must be written down. If they're playing in unison for like 16 bars, that's probably written down, <laughter> right? It's not a coincidence. With a piano trio, it's generally less evident what the distinction is between the beginning, middle, and end, because it all has the same ingredients, essentially. So, because of that, it's hard to say “This is me, the composer, and now it's me, the player.” It's actually always the same. So, because of that, I've done a lot of covers, actually, in the trio, recasting music from the past in a way that was kind of activating, for us, giving it a different rhythmic shape or something like that, or rhythmic impulse. So that's been useful, is having something else to work off of and work with or against. But I guess in terms of what is it like to bring pieces into them, they grasp it in less time. Actually, Tyshawn’s always been like this. I'll never forget the first time he came over to my place. It was in 2001, and I handed him-- it was one page of music, but it had a lot of intricate-- to me, anyway, <laughs> information on it. He held it in his hand for about 15 seconds, and then he gave it back to me. <laughs> He still remembers that piece to this day. That's <laughs> how he is. So these are the people I'm dealing with, is people who can really instantaneously absorb that kind of information and then start building with it. So that makes it, again, really smooth sailing. So, I guess the combination of these things means that actually what I often do is underspecify what's on the page, because it doesn't need to be super intricate. Because all the details will emerge from how we all play together.

Jo Reed: Well, collaboration, obviously, is so important to you, and you’ve had many extraordinary collaborators. I mentioned Roscoe Mitchell previously, and I know he was important to you. I'd love to have you share a little bit about your time with him?  He’s an NEA Jazz Master and I think he's an extraordinary musician. 

Vijay Iyer: <laughs> I think so too. I think about him all the time. I mean, he's still such a major figure in this music, and such a major force in my life, in terms of everything I learned working with him. I was just thinking about this. <laughs> I was just remembering that the first time I went there was my first gig with <laughs> Roscoe. That was such a trial by fire, because actually I got called at the last minute to replace someone else who had to cancel on him. This was in the year 2000, I think? Anyway, I just got flown in and went straight to soundcheck. It was in Switaly, as we call it, the Italian part of Switzerland. I'd been recommended to him, and I kind of thought I had something to offer. I was like “Okay, this is going to be great. I'm playing with my hero.” Because by then I'd seen him play many times, both with the Art Ensemble in the ‘90s, and solo and duo with Malachi Favors. I was just a fan of everything he had done, and it was always transformative for me. It was always this life-changing moment, where he would reveal something you didn't know was possible about yourself, or about the world, or about music, or about life. In the course of a 12-minute alto solo, <laughs> something like that, he would just somehow reorganize your relationship to the world, and to sound, and to space, <laughs> everything. It sounds mystical, but he would do it basically without fail every time I saw him. So I already had this kind of awe when I got there, and we were playing with three musicians who had been playing with him for 30 years. It was Jaribu Shahid, Tani Tabbal, and Spencer Barefield, and then me. I was new to the family <laughter>. He gave me some guidelines, and there was a bunch of notated music that was very difficult to play. It was very complicated. There was a lot of detail in it, and it wasn't obvious how to play it. It took a while for me to get it together, and it was still like piece by piece. I had just gotten it, and I was trying to catch up because the gig was in a couple of hours or something. At the soundcheck, I don't know, I was trying to play in the way that I thought I knew how to play in these sort of more open, improvised contexts, and he kept telling me to stop playing. And then on the gig, he kept, again, telling me to stop playing, <laughs> and I was like “Oh, well, I hope that something works out.” The next night, that kept happening. He gave me some guidelines, things to listen for, and he kept saying “Please don't follow me. You don't know where I'm going.” Basically, the implication was “Don't play my stuff back at me. Don't try to imitate me. Don't do this call and response thing with me that you think you're supposed to do. Don't do that.” So then I was like “Well, what do I do?” Also, he didn't want me to play chords <laughs>. I’m like “Okay, I'm a piano player who can't play chords. All right, so what’s left? I don't know.” The third night, I remember we were in Firenze, and I guess I just felt like this cornered animal. I just was in some sort of survival mode. It's like my brain left my body or something, and then something else started happening at the piano. It was like I had an out-of-body experience, because I just was watching myself do something that I didn't think I knew how to do, and I didn't know what it was. I couldn't account for it, and I couldn't even really follow it, but it just kept happening. It's like something just burst forth from me, in a way. I didn't know I had it. I didn't know how I could’ve found it. But that was the time he didn't tell me to stop. That was it, actually. <laughs> That was what I was supposed to be doing.

Jo Reed: That’s what he was looking for. Yeah, interesting. 

Vijay Iyer: He helped me find that in myself. He helped me relate to everything in a very different way. So, it really changed me in that way. It opened this whole other vista for me. It was like I found a new room in my house or something. It was really weird. <laughter> It was like “Oh, I never knew this was here. This is a part of me. I have this whole other set of limbs,” or something like that. It was like that. It was like suddenly I could fly, or <laughs> something. So, I will never be the same because of that, and I still kind of get chills thinking about it. I just feel so blessed to have had all these years of music making with him, and to just be on the same planet with him at the same time. 

Jo Reed: We're going to be closing because I know I'm keeping you, but you've quoted Muhal Richard Abrams, saying “When you create music together, you create a bond that can never be broken.” I’d just like you to speak to that a little bit, because it sounds obviously like that's true with Roscoe. It's obviously true with your trio, and with so many other people. 

Vijay Iyer: Yeah, I think it's that experience of building something together. It's not just reading the same page of music, <laughs> or something like that, but actually the experience of interdependence, where everything you do depends on what everyone else does, and the kind of attunement that's required of that in order to be a part of something like that. Then you find yourself caring about each other, in a way that might catch you off guard, even. You realize that you're involved in someone's life. It's what Wadada calls “Divine love.” 

Jo Reed: I think that's a good place to leave it. Vijay, thank you so much. I really appreciate you giving me your time. And the music is beautiful. 

Vijay Iyer: Well, thanks so much. Thanks for listening and for giving it your time. 

Jo Reed: That was pianist, composer and MacArthur Fellow Vijay Iyer. His first his first orchestral music CD, “Vijay Iyer: Trouble” has just been recorded and released by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project with Jennifer Koh led by Gil Rose. You can keep up with Vijay’s many projects at Vijay-iyer.com. We’ll also have a link to the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and to my interview with its founder and conductor Gil Rose in our show notes.

You’ve been listening to Art Works, produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating, it helps people to find us. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I’m Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.