Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway". Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. He was voted Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat magazine international critics' polls in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018. In 2014, he received a lifetime appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, where he was jointly appointed in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.

Fairport is a village located in the Town of Perinton, which is part of Monroe County, New York, United States. Fairport is a suburb 9 miles (14 km) east of Rochester. It is also known as the "Crown Jewel of the Erie Canal". The population of the Village of Fairport was 5,501 as of the 2020 census.