vijay iyer
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vijayiyer.bsky.social
vijay iyer
@vijayiyer.bsky.social
7.3K followers 3K following 790 posts
music maker // free all political prisoners // fight all supremacies // latest albums: Defiant Life (2025), Thereupon (2025), Compassion (2024), Trouble (2024), Love in Exile (2023) // prof @ h*rv*rd // linktr.ee/vijayiyer
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vijayiyer.bsky.social
Fly on, Jack DeJohnette. 💐🕊️🤲🏾

photo (by me) backstage at Jazz @ Lincoln Center, Nov 2, 2019
A silhouetted figure with greying hair, seen from behind, in shadows
October 27, 2025 at 1:24 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Join us! linktr.ee/vijayiyer
Photo of Wadada Leo Smith & me leaning against a white wall, plus a list: 26.10 Gdansk (PL) 28.10 Ludwogshafen (DE) 30.10 Berlin (DE) 31.10 London (UK)
October 24, 2025 at 5:28 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
In other news, I couldn’t be more excited about my spring course, “Creative Music: Composer-Pianists.”

Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Randy Weston, Alice Coltrane-Turiyasangitananda, McCoy Tyner, Geri Allen

🤩🤩🤩
Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Randy Weston, Alice Coltrane-Turiyasangitananda, McCoy Tyner, Geri Allen
October 23, 2025 at 11:45 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Killmonger
October 19, 2025 at 11:45 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
NYC: GET YOUR TICKETS NOW

VIJAY IYER QUARTET
w/ ADAM O’FARRILL, YUNIOR TERRY, & TYSHAWN SOREY

THE VILLAGE VANGUARD
NOVEMBER 4 - 9

🎫👇🏾
vv.squadup.com/artists/vija...
October 12, 2025 at 11:21 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
In case you’re hearing about the “protest that turned violent” in Boston last week, here’s the “violence” in question, per the police report
Following the protest, four officers were taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries. One officer had a broken nose and had his glasses broken, another was treated for pepper spray exposure, one sustained a finger injury while handcuffing and another sustained a lower back injury attempting to make an arrest.
October 12, 2025 at 10:25 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
me with Mr. Baraka at Harlem Stage, 2012
October 8, 2025 at 1:40 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
“There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.”

--Amiri Baraka (10/7/1934-1/9/2014)

(blurry photo by me)
October 8, 2025 at 1:05 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
students know.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
"The elephant in the room is that the two biggest '-isms' that have been discussed at Harvard's campus are Islamophobia and antisemitism," one student said during the training, according to an audio recording obtained by The Crimson. "What went into the decision of deciding that one needed a presentation and the other one didn't?" The crowd erupted into applause. The mandated antisemitism training follows months of accusations from the White House that Harvard fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students in the fallout of campus protests. Residential staff, including tutors and proctors, were required to attend a similar session. And Harvard has been vocal about its commitments to Jewish life on campus. But at the same time, Harvard is cutting back on inclusion programs elsewhere, shuttering the Harvard College's Women's Center, Office for BGLTQ Student Life, and Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations in July.
August 27, 2025 at 8:48 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Watched Thunderbolts on a plane and this bit from the end credits made me cackle
op ed by David Brooks in very NYT op ed font, titled “I Like ‘Em”
August 25, 2025 at 10:58 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
But most of all this museum is a testament and tribute to resistance.

“Even on the saddest night in times of servitude
there is always someone who resists there is always someone who says no.”
Manuel Alegre, 1965
August 24, 2025 at 11:34 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
‘Fear impregnated the whole social relationship. Fear of being arrested, fear of losing one's job, fear of social ostracism, fear of persecution and of isolation... Fear of hierarchical superiors, fear of the police, fear of the burocrat, fear of one's neighbours...’
Mário de Carvalho, 2014
August 24, 2025 at 11:32 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Salazar had a brutal police force that abducted his political opponents, interrogated them using “enhanced” techniques, and imprisoned them under cruel conditions in Lisbon or deported them to prisons camps in the then-colonies.

oh, and btw—
Support from foreign services The political police are known to have collaborated with the OVRA, Mussolini's fascist police in Italy, and the Gestapo, the political police in Nazi Germany. They served as a model, particularly in the design of the concentration camp in Tarrafal. In 1957, PIDE officers began to receive interrogation training at the CIA facilities in Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia in the United States. Within that collaboration, PIDE had access to an interrogation manual entitled "KUBARK COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGA-TION" (KUBARK was a codename for the CIA). The manual was decisive in the reorganisation of interrogation methods at the PIDE/DGS and resulted in systematic use of "sensory deprivation" as opposed to or in addition to indiscriminate physical violence.
August 24, 2025 at 9:38 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
today i'm playing in Harlem on this stunning lineup curated by the great King Britt for SummerStage!!!

August 17 @ 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Marcus Garvey Park
18 Mt. Morris Park West, New York, NY 10027
All Ages
Free
Blacktronika Festival: Black Quantum Futurism featuring Moor Mother & Rasheedah Phillips / Vijay Iyer, Shana Redmond & LaFrae Sci / Joy Guidry & Niecy Blues / Sonic Messengers / King Britt
August 17, 2025 at 2:34 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
young James Baldwin: “I’m terrified at the moral apathy”
August 17, 2025 at 2:35 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Cash payouts to resolve allegations of illegality that have never been properly established or investigated, as at Columbia, are unacceptable; sacrificing non-gender-conforming community members to satisfy the Trump administration's retrograde gender ideology, as at Brown and Penn, is unacceptable. It will take more than lawsuits to preserve what remains of this country's democracy. But the forms of student and faculty action mentioned here point the way. Corporate boards of trustees are not synonymous with the universities themselves, and they are not the ones most motivated to defend the core values of higher education. We are. And we won't capitulate.
August 15, 2025 at 3:34 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
i don’t know if you knew that the current senior fellow of harvard corporation is the niece of DJT’s ex partner in the hotel biz
July 29, 2025 at 3:50 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
‘The writers crying “Je suis Charlie” in 2015 have not made themselves heard saying “Je suis Refaat Alareer.”’

Mishra on “Speaking Reassurance to Power” in Harper’s:

archive.is/JLWvu
Screenshot from the article, with the following passage highlighted: ‘As its icons flee to Canada and Europe, "resistance liberalism" is being outsourced to Harvard University, where its pusillanimity is further revealed through a president carefully implementing Trumpian strictures against "campus culture."’
July 21, 2025 at 5:55 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
LRT
Some 55% of the British public opposes Israel's military campaign in Gaza, and 45% view Israel's actions as genocidal; less than half of Americans are now more sympathetic to Israel than to Palestinians, and almost 60% of Democrats are now more supportive of Palestinians. Among people under 40, those numbers only go up. Those people have been told that Gaza protests are hate marches; they can see it's not true. They have been told that US campus protesters are largely motivated by antisemitism; they can see it's not true. They have been told that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation because it spray painted military aircraft; they can see it's not true. They have been repeatedly told, by Benjamin Netanyahu, that opposition to Israel's war is antisemitic; they can see it's not true. They have been told that the British government finds Israel's actions "intolerable"; they can see it's not true. Now they are being told that opposing the IDF is antisemitic, that the Glastonbury crowd is more virulent than the one at Nuremberg, and that direct action is a form of terrorism. They can see all that's not true, either, and however far their view is from the front pages, they know that they are far from alone.
July 6, 2025 at 11:39 AM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Coming in September @harvardpress.bsky.social
Book cover: THE NORTON LECTURES CENTENARY EDITION IGOR STRAVINSKY POETICS OF MUSIC in the Form of Six Lessons FOREWORD BY VIJAY IYER
June 29, 2025 at 6:19 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
😭

skyviewer.app
June 23, 2025 at 11:05 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
Anyway I’m playing two shows with the great Wadada Leo Smith next weekend. Come by if you’re around! #DefiantLife

Fri 6/27 Constellation, Chicago
Sat 6/28 Montreal Jazz Festival

linktr.ee/vijayiyer
Wadada and Vijay in performance Wadada and Vijay in performance
June 22, 2025 at 10:17 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
NYC is awash in nonsense. Just got two more today
Two misleading large glossy inane Cuomo flyers portraying himself as a hero and Zohran Mamdani as a villain
June 20, 2025 at 7:40 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
🚫👑🚫
A person wearing a rubber full-head Trump mask and an orange jumpsuit, holding an “arrest Trump” sign. Other protestors are in the background Protestors in the rain on 5th ave holding various signs, including “the only monarch I support” with images of butterflies Protestor holding a “Let them eat Teslas” sign Protesters on 5th Ave in the rain holding various signs, including “Authority is brittle”
June 14, 2025 at 9:03 PM
vijayiyer.bsky.social
It may surprise the reader to learn that during the last decade, the main “chill” at universities has not been “leftists on campus”. It has instead been a relentless attack on college professors and students by rightwing outlets. In 2016, Turning Point USA introduced its “Professor Watchlist”, targeting supposedly radical professors on campus. Campus Reform is an outlet devoted to reporting on liberal professors for their speech – for example, by student reports, social media usage or academic publications. For around a decade, Rod Dreher used his position as a senior editor at the American Conservative to target leftist academics, often to devastating effect. And Canary Mission has steadily and for many years targeted professors for their advocacy for the Palestinian cause. These are hardly the only, or even the most powerful, outlets involved in this long assault (I have not even mentioned Fox News). University professors are terrified of being targeted by these organizations.
June 14, 2025 at 2:12 PM