Pianist Vijay Iyer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith are celebrating the world premiere of their collaborative suite, "A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke", at the modern arts center of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their collaboration is inspired by the late Indian visual artist Nasreen Mohamedi, whose artwork was exhibited several floors below.

They are an unlikely pair. Iyer's parents are Indian immigrants. And the 44 year old grew up in upstate New York. Smith is 74-years old and has roots in the Mississippi Delta.

They are an unlikely pair. Iyer's parents are Indian immigrants. And the 44 year old grew up in upstate New York. Smith is 74-years old and has roots in the Mississippi Delta.

Born world's apart the two men seem to share some sort of musical telepathy, that can be heard on their recently released studio recording and in their live performance. Smith masterfully covers a full range on his trumpet -- from whispered breaths to loud bursts -- while Iyer switches smoothly from acoustic to electric piano, at times adding electro beats.

Iyer has been voted jazz artist of the year in Downbeat magazine's critics poll, has received a MacArthur Foundation genius grant, and is a professor in Harvard's music department. But he almost never became a musician at all.

Mixing up jazz piano and visual art

Instead of music, Iyer first majored in physics and mathematics at Yale. At the age of 23, he decided to stop pursuing his doctorate in physics to become a professional musician. He later received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Berkeley focusing on music and embodied cognition, or how the human body perceives music.
 
After Iyer became the 2015-16 artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art curators introduced him to Mohamedi's work. The museum then commissioned Iyer to compose a suite with Smith based on Mohamedi's diaries for the exhibition opening of The Met Breuer -- a center for the museum's modern art program in the former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The duo recorded the suite in October. The titles of the suite and its seven movements are taken from phrases in Mohamedi's diaries.

Iyer was particularly struck by the precise, delicate drawings Mohamedi made in her later years as she struggled with a debilitating neurological disease that made it difficult for her to hold her pen. Iyer believes there is a field of energy behind each of her strokes.