Part of the opening of The Met Breuer is the one-week artist residency by Vijay Iyer, a Grammy-nominated composer and pianist. Iyer is part of The Vijay Iyer Trio, which has two award-winning albums. Iyer has also composed music for The Silkroad Ensemble.
The performances below took place on the first open day to the public at The Met Breuer on Friday, March 18 from 6:30 PM to 7:15 PM. It is called Raw Materials and is performed by Vijay Iyer on the piano and Rudresh Mahanthappa on the alto saxophone.
Part of Iyer’s residency is to collaborate with various musicians such as David Bird, Teju Cole, Miranda Cuckson, DJ Val-INC, Patricia Franceschy, HPrizm, Okkyung Lee, Mendi + Keith Obadike and Rudresh Mahanthappa in a performance called Relation.
In these performances, Iyer and his guest artists improvise according to the each other and the environment, thus creating a relation.
The audience members were swaying with the music and many people were closing their eyes.
Even though there was no intermission, no one in the audience got up to move or left the performance. The energy between Iyer and Mahanthappa was captivating.
The final piece before they left to take a break before their next performance.
Iyer and Mahanthappa later joined everyone to view the rest of the museum.
The Met Breuer is located at 945 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10021.
The performance residency starts March 18 and ends March 20, 2016. Hours for the rest of the exhibits vary each day and can be found here.
The suggested admission for tickets is $25. The suggested amount for student discounted tickets is $12.
The suggested admission for tickets is $25. The suggested amount for student discounted tickets is $12.
You can follow Michael Bong on Snapchat @mikeybong to see more of his art adventures.