As readers of this blog already know, on September 9th and 10th the Knight Institute will partner with Columbia’s Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism to host a major symposium, “The Forever War and the First Amendment,” examining how the War on Terror continues to shape our democracy and, in particular, how it has tested and transformed the freedoms of speech and the press. Today we’re thrilled to announce that the symposium will also feature a special performance by the composer and pianist Vijay Iyer.

Described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway,” Iyer has carved out a unique path as an influential, prolific, shape-shifting presence in 21st-century music. A composer and pianist active and revered across multiple musical communities, Iyer has created a consistently innovative, emotionally resonant body of work over the last three decades, earning him a place as one of the leading music-makers of his generation.

Discussing his participation in this symposium, Iyer explained:

I have lived in New York City since 1998 and was home that morning in September 2001. Our immediate overwhelming sorrow and confusion soon was overlaid with pervasive anxiety, as every brown person became subject to new levels of surveillance and suspicion. “Welcome to racial profiling,” the writer Greg Tate told me that fall, highlighting our linked fates. At the time I was playing piano in poet Amiri Baraka’s band. Shortly after the attacks his iconic piece Somebody Blew Up America became a mainstay in our repertoire. 

Since then, every choice I’ve made as an artist has been structured by the U.S.’s post-9/11 descent into overt fascism, from my collaborative projects with poet Mike Ladd (In What Language? (2003), Still Life with Commentator (2007), and Holding it Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project (2013)), to instrumental albums like Blood Sutra (2003), Tragicomic (2008), and Uneasy (2021), to a recent protest album with Wadada Leo Smith titled Defiant Life (2025). In this performance I will share selections from these and other projects as an activation of our present moment.

Iyer’s many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, the Alpert Award in the Arts, and three Grammy nominations. He is the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.

The symposium will run from 4:00 pm ET on September 9th through 5:00 pm ET on September 10th and will feature panels and public interviews with scholars, lawyers, journalists, and advocates including M. Gessen, Lydia Polgreen, Phil Klay, Steve Coll, Rozina Ali, David Cole, Jelani Cobb, Aziz Rana, and many others, along with one-on-one conversations with Alberto Mora, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and Mohsen Mahdawi. Iyer’s performance will take place on the opening evening–September 9th. 

Please register here to attend in person or to watch the livestream. Iyer’s performance will not be livestreamed.