BAM Affiliation Grammy-nominated composer and pianist Vijay Iyer has been described by The New Yorker as one of “today’s most important pianists… extravagantly gifted… brilliantly eclectic.” His honors include a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship; an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the 2012 Down Beat International Critics Poll (Jazz Artist of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of the Year, and Rising Star Composer categories); a “quadruple crown” in the JazzTimes extended critics poll (Artist of the Year, Acoustic/Mainstream Group of the Year, Pianist of the Year, and Album of the Year); and the Pianist of the Year Award in 2012 and 2013 from the Jazz Journalists Association. A polymath whose career has spanned the sciences, the humanities, and the arts, Iyer received an interdisciplinary PhD in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2014 he began a permanent appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University’s Department of Music.