2012 GREENFIELD PRIZE WINNER  |  Vijay Iyer
Grammy-nominated composer-pianist VIJAY IYER was described by Pitchfork as "one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today," by The New Yorker as one of "today's most important pianists...extravagantly gifted...brilliantly eclectic," and by the Los Angeles Weekly as "a boundless and deeply important young star." He was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, and named one of the "50 Most Influential Global Indians" by GQ India. Iyer has released sixteen albums as a leader, most recently Accelerando (2012), an intense, visceral follow-up to the multiple-award-winning Historicity (2009), both featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio (Iyer, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Stephan Crump, bass). Historicity was a 2010 Grammy Nominee for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, and was named #1 Jazz Album of the Year in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Metro Times, National Public Radio, PopMatters.com, the Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll, and the Downbeat International Critics Poll. The trio won the 2010 Echo Award (the "German Grammy") for best international ensemble and the Downbeat Critics Poll for rising star small ensemble of the year. Iyer’s many other honors include the Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and numerous composer commissions.

Iyer’s many collaborators include his generation’s fellow forward-thinkers Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rez Abbasi, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Liberty Ellman, Steve Lehman and Tyshawn Sorey; elder avant-garde pioneers such as Steve Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, George Lewis, and Amina Claudine Myers; new-music experimenters Miya Masaoka, Pamela Z, and John Zorn; hip-hop innovators Dead Prez, Das Racist, DJ Spooky, and High Priest of Antipop Consortium; South Asian percussionist-producers Karsh Kale, Suphala, and Talvin Singh; filmmakers Haile Gerima and Bill Morrison; choreographer Karole Armitage; and poets Mike Ladd, Amiri Baraka, Charles Simic, and Robert Pinsky. His concert works have been performed by Ethel, JACK, Brentano String Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Hermès Ensemble, and Imani Winds. 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 articles in Journal of Consciousness Studies, Wire, Music Perception, JazzTimes, and The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2010.

Mr. Iyer will be releasing a new CD on March 13 titled Accelerando. The following are links to more information about Mr. Iyer:

http://vijay-iyer.com
http://twitter.com/vijayiyer
http://facebook.com/vijayiyermusic

Link to an October, 2010 interview on NPR's "Fresh Air."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130543663

Link to a live concert recording recently posted on NPR.org
http://www.npr.org/event/music/144979104/vijay-iyer-trio-live-in-concert

2012 KEYNOTE SPEAKER  |  Robert Spano
Robert Spano is one of the brightest and most imaginative conductors of his generation. As Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, he has enriched and expanded its repertoire and elevated the ensemble to new levels of international prominence. In 2012, Robert Spano becomes Music Director of the Aspen Music Festival and School and is also a Fellow of the Aspen Institute as part of the Harman-Eisner Artist in Residence Program.

Spano's 2011-2012 engagements include appearances with Seattle Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony and Orchestra of St. Luke's. Respected as a collaborative pianist and composer, Spano joins bass-baritone Eric Owens for three recitals in Denver, CO, Davis, CA and Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in New York. Maestro Spano conducts the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra as well as the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Philadelphia and at the Dresden Music Festival. Spring 2011 marks the third, and final, year of Spano's three-year residency at Emory University, a testament to Spano's communicative abilities and passion for education. In its 165-year history, Emory University has honored only seven other individuals with such expansive residencies, including the Dalai Lama, President Jimmy Carter and author Salman Rushdie.

Robert Spano opens the Atlanta Symphony's 2011-2012 season September 22 and in October conducts the U.S. premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Nyx in both Atlanta and New York's Carnegie Hall. Mr. Spano conducts three world premieres in Atlanta this season; an ASO commission by Atlanta School of Composers member Adam Schoenberg and works by Alvin Singleton and Marcus Roberts. Mr. Spano oversees two Theater of a Concert performances: Bach's St. Matthew Passion and John Adams' A Flowering Tree.

With a discography of 16 critically-acclaimed recordings for Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon, Robert Spano has garnered six Grammy Awards. In February 2011, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Naxos created ASO Media and the label's first recording was released in April 2011.

Musical America's 2008 "Conductor of the Year," Mr. Spano is on the faculty of Oberlin Conservatory, and has received honorary doctorates from Bowling Green State University, the Curtis Institute of Music, Emory University, and Oberlin.