Vijay Iyer Announced as 2012 Greenfield Prize Winner

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation have announced that Composer-Pianist Vijay Iyer is the winner of the $30,000 Greenfield Prize, awarded this year in the field of music. Iyer will receive the award at a special celebration dinner on April 1, 2012 in Sarasota, FL. 

“The Hermitage is very excited to announce Vijay Iyer as the 2012 Greenfield Prize winner in music,” remarked Bruce E. Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage. “We look forward to April 1st, when we present Vijay with the Prize, and begin the two-year process of working with him to provide whatever support he needs to realize his commission and goals.”

Vijay Iyer is a Grammy-nominated composer-pianist who was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association and named one the 50 most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India. Iyer has released 15 albums, including the Grammy-nominated “Historicity” (2009), which was named #1 Jazz album of the year in the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Metro Times, NPR, PopMatters.com, Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll and Downbeat International Critics Poll. Vijay Iyer’s newest CD "Accelerando" (ACT Music + Vision) is scheduled for release on March 13th. His concert works have been performed by the Ethel, JACK, and Brentano String Quartets, the Silk Road Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, Hermès Ensemble, and Imani Winds. Among many awards, Iyer has received the Alpert Award of the Arts and the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship.

"I'm honored, delighted, and surprised by this award,” said Iyer. “It's rare and astonishing for my work to be embraced on such a scale, and it's a particularly special honor coming from the Greenfield Prize's interdisciplinary perspective."

The Greenfield Prize Award dinner will be the culmination of what has come to be known as the Greenfield Prize Celebration weekend. Festivities will begin on Thursday, March 29, when Sanford Biggers, first winner of the Greenfield Prize in visual arts, unveils his commissioned work at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. Other events, many free and open to the public, will take place over the weekend leading up to the award dinner honoring Iyer. Keynote speaker for the April 1st dinner will be Robert Spano, conductor of the Atlanta Symphony and artistic director of the Aspen Music Festival.

“Vijay Iyer is a perfect recipient for the Greenfield Prize,” continued Rodgers. “The goal in creating the award was a means by which a groundbreaking, enduring work of art could be created. He has told us he is interested in bringing improvisation into a format where classically-trained musicians are empowered to make choices and real-time decisions but in a very structured way. The Greenfield Prize will buy him time to sit down and think about music. That is exactly what we want this gift to allow and we look forward to April, 2014, when the work will be premiered at La Musica Music Festival.”

The Greenfield Prize was established in 2009 by longtime Sarasota residents Bob and Louise Greenfield, through the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation. The Prize consists of a $30,000 commission of an original work of art, a residency at the Hermitage, and a partnership with a professional arts organization to develop the work plus assistance in moving the work forward into the American arts world.

To post a comment, you must register and login.