American Repertory Theater's Live @ OBERON Series Continues with Acclaimed Vijay Iyer Trio

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University continues its curated live music series, Live @ OBERON, with The Vijay Iyer Trio on Thursday, December 4 at 8PM.

By overwhelming consensus, The Vijay Iyer Trio has become one of the pivotal jazz bands of the twenty-first century. Called "the best piano trio in jazz today" (Der Spiegel), "truly astonishing" (NPR), and "the best band in jazz" (PopMatters), the trio makes "cutting-edge music, but always accessible" (The Guardian). Grammy Award-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer, DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Linda May Han Oh on bass, and MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey on drums form the group that Jazzwise says "has the potential to alter the scope, ambition, and language of jazz piano forever."

Bringing together an eclectic array of musical artists, many with local roots, Live @ OBERON features exceptional original shows that utilize A.R.T.'s club space for cutting-edge performance.

TICKETING INFORMATION

Tickets start at $25 and are currently available online at AmericanRepertoryTheater.org, by phone at 617.547.8300, in person at the Loeb Drama Center Ticket Services Offices (64 Brattle Street, Cambridge), and at OBERON starting at 7PM on December 4.

OBERON is located at 2 Arrow Street at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, Cambridge.

By overwhelming consensus, the VIJAY IYER TRIO has become one of the pivotal jazz bands of the twenty-first century. Described as "the best piano trio in jazz today" (Der Spiegel), "the great new jazz piano trio" (The New York Times), "truly astonishing" (NPR), and "the best band in jazz" (PopMatters), the trio makes "cutting-edge music, but always accessible" (The Guardian) - emotionally resonant and deeply interactive, radiating groove and brimming with polyrhythmic detail, rooted in tradition yet truly innovative in style and form.

Break Stuff (2015), "the third and best record by Mr. Iyer's trio" (The New York Times) and Iyer's twentieth release as a leader, was produced by Manfred Eicher for ECM. It received a coveted five stars in DownBeat magazine, and the German newspaper Die Zeit raved, "This record is very, very, very good... as astonishing as it is intoxicating." Far From Over, Iyer's 2017 ECM Records release, is the first for his Sextet, which is built around this same trio, this time with Tyshawn Sorey on drums, and with the addition of three stellar horn players, Graham Haynes, Mark Shim, and Steve Lehman. The record topped numerous "Best of" lists for 2017.

Among Iyer's honors, his trio was named Jazz Group of the Year in the DownBeat International Critics Poll in both 2015 and 2012. Crucially, as DownBeat notes, "the Vijay Iyer Trio is, at its core, a working band," distinguished most of all by a profound, seemingly effortless unity, developed over hundreds of performances in nearly a dozen years." As Howard Reich wrote in The Chicago Tribune, "The three players practically have become a single rhythmic organism... one of the great rhythm units of the day."

The trio earned the admiration of audiences, musicians, and journalists worldwide with its two previous albums, Historicity (ACT, 2009) and Accelerando (ACT, 2012), which were both named #1 jazz album of their respective years in both the DownBeat and JazzTimes international critics' polls, surveying hundreds of critics. The British magazine Jazzwise said, "The Vijay Iyer Trio has the potential to alter the scope, ambition and language of jazz piano forever."

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