Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith

When Vijay Iyer heard Wadada Leo Smith for the first time, it was a revelation: "It was only through him that I learned what is possible, how you can express yourself with sound and time in a completely different way." The 83-year-old trumpeter belongs to the second, one could say enlightened, generation of free jazz, which has explored all kinds of traditions and even new music. The boundaries between notation and free playing are blurred; Smith sees improvisation as "a way of being in the world". He has worked with everyone who is anyone in the avant-garde. You could say that two innovators have come together here. Vijay Iyer, Harvard professor and one of the leading jazz intellectuals of his generation, has received numerous awards for his innovative work. He was the first musician to win five categories in the DownBeat critics' poll in one year. The duo album "Defiant Life", recently recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, is an artistic statement for a culture of resistance in the tradition of the American civil rights movements. And the most impressive thing is that the possible contradiction between beauty and relevance is completely resolved here.

The concert will be followed by an artist talk on the festival theme of Knowing.
The conversation will be led by Sarah Seidel.