Connecticut musician Tyshawn Sorey has followed up last year's MacArthur Fellowship with another prominent award.
Sorey is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and an assistant professor of music at Wesleyan University. Besides his work as composer-in-residence with the Brooklyn-based International Contemporary Ensemble, he also leads the Tyshawn Sorey Trio, a group that seems to defy musical genres.
In a 2017 interview with the MacArthur Foundation, who awarded him a “genius” grant last year, Sorey said he's not interested in musical labels and discourages listeners from classifying his music.
“Terms like jazz, R&B, avant-garde and things like that -- I don't consider them really important when it comes to my music” said Sorey. “I'm interested in the totality of all different musics throughout the world, and seeing what I can do with them.”
Now, Sorey has just been chosen for a 2018 United States Artists fellowship, along with 45 other artists, including jazz greats Terence Blanchard and Wayne Shorter.
Sorey and the other fellows will receive a $50,000 unrestricted award, for "their contributions to the field, and allowing them to decide how to best support their lives" according to the United States Artists’s website.
