The New Yorker Profiles New Wes Faculty Member Sorey MA ’11

“Tyshawn Sorey Defeats Preconceptions,” proclaims the The New Yorker headline on a profile of Wesleyan’s newest assistant professor of music, Tyshawn Sorey MA ’11, who will join the Wesleyan faculty this fall. “The prodigious multi-instrumentalist and composer transcends the borders of jazz, classical, and experimental music.”

The New Yorker notes Sorey as “among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone,” the boundary between classical music and jazz. He will join Wesleyan’s faculty this fall, taking the place of another trailblazer in this arena, Anthony Braxton, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus. According to the article:

“In the jazz world, [Sorey] is best known for his asymmetrical, unpredictable, timbrally explosive drumming, which has given anarchic momentum to a number of Iyer’s ensemble pieces. Yet in the past couple of years he has also made his mark with imposing compositional statements: a song cycle paying tribute to Josephine Baker, which had its première at the 2016 Ojai Music Festival (and can be seen online), and a two-hour suite entitled ‘The Inner Spectrum of Variables,’ a recording of which was released by Pi last year.”

In August, Sorey will release a trio album called, “Versimilitude.”