Esteemed composer and musician Vijay Iyer leads a master class with UW music students, followed by a Q & A moderated by School of music professor and improvisational trumpeter Steph Richards. This event is co-hosted by Meany Center for the Performing Arts and the UW School of Music. Vijay Iyer appears at Meany Center for the Performing Arts on May 14 and 15 with East Coast Chamber Ensemble. Details here.
Note: The class is free to attend, but RSVP is required. RSVP HERE
Program
for violin alone (3') - Michaela Klesse, violin
The Diamond, Movt. I. A Dream (6') - David Teves-Tan, violin, Jeffrey Tso, piano
Crown Thy Good (5'), Freya Frahm, piano
Mlonje: Voices Joined by Nubiyan Twist & The Zawose Queens, Owen Tucker Gwinn, Sax; Carson Johnson, Sax; Corlan Costello, Piano; Aiden Lok Fung Chan, Drums; Packard Stephenson, Bass
Biographies
VIJAY IYER is a composer and pianist in New York. In 2025 he released Defiant Life with Wadada Leo Smith, and Thereupon with the group Fieldwork. Rolling Stone observed, “Iyer’s music knows no bounds.” He received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, and three Grammy nominations. He teaches at Harvard.
STEPH RICHARDS is a dynamic improvisor known for her innovative approach to the trumpet and interdisciplinary expression as a composer. An “innately adventurous trumpeter,” (Downbeat), she has collaborated with visionaries Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams and John Zorn as well as art pop luminaries Yoko Ono, St. Vincent, David Byrne and Laurie Anderson. She is the Floyd and Delores Jones Endowed Chair in the Arts and Professor of Music at the University of Washington.
NUBIAN TWIST'S music is categorized as a fusion of jazz, Afrobeat, UK soul, hip-hop, highlife, and reggae. Orchestrated by producer Tom Excell, their sound blends global grooves with modern horn-led arrangements and electronics, often characterized as a, jazztastic, danceable "big band" sound.