MacArthur 'Genius' Grant Winner To Join Music Faculty

Harvard University will be adding the winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant to its music faculty in January of next year when renowned jazz musician and scholar Vijay Iyer takes up his post as the University’s first Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Iyer as one of its awardees on Wednesday, calling him “an ardent investigator of musical communities, practices, histories, and theories” whose work is “richly varied” and “improvisation-driven.” The award, colloquially referred to as the “genius” grant, provides winners with $625,000 to use as they please. Twenty-four people were named MacArthur Fellows this year.

A jazz pianist and composer, Iyer has released 16 recordings. He also works in many disciplines beyond music—he graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics and received a Masters in Physics and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the cognitive science of music from the University of California at Berkeley.

Music Department Chair Alexander Rehding said he is very excited for the interdisciplinary opportunities that will emerge once Iyer joins the department. “He links the creative arts with critical reception and even with work that connects into the cognitive sciences, and I think that this is an area which a lot of faculty and students are really excited about,” Rehding said. “The psychology department is really excited about having him here as well.”

Another member of the department, Senior Lecturer on Music and Director of Choral Activities Andrew G. Clark, said that he and other members of the faculty are eager to “welcome Vijay as a colleague and to benefit from his remarkable background as a performer, as a scholar, as a composer, and [as a] producer. I think it gives our students an opportunity to work with and learn with a world-class performing artist, and it provides a lot of exciting new opportunities for the department.”

Chase E. Morrin ’15, a junior in Quincy House, worked with Iyer this summer and said he is talented as a musician and an instructor. “I’ve always loved his music. I’ve really admired everything he’s done,” Morrin said. “This summer I got to work with him at the [Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music]. It was a really wonderful experience.”

“He’s a really wonderful teacher,” Morrin added. “Everything he says is really well thought out. You can tell he really takes the time to think about things and not just do them. I really admire that.”

According to Morrin, Iyer is also very approachable outside of the classroom. “He’s really nice. You can go talk to him. He always has something to say. I think just in general, it’s going to be a great thing that he’s there in the music department.”

The MacArthur Grant is not the first recognition of Iyer’s work. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2011 and has been named Pianist of the Year in the 2013 Jazz Awards for the second consecutive year.