Fifteen, the first album from the collective trio of saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Dafnis Prieto, is out August 21, 2026 on Nonesuch Records. It is the label debut for all three musicians. The record takes its name from the number of years the trio has been performing together—first at a series of benefits for the New York City club the Jazz Gallery, a club they have since played at periodically, and then around the US and internationally. It comprises three compositions by Threadgill and Iyer and two by Prieto. The album track “I Wanted a Map,” written by Iyer, is available now, along with this video made during the recording session:

Threadgill, Iyer, and Prieto are three of the most celebrated composer-performers of our time. Their collective project, informally dubbed “The Trio,” began in 2012 when Rio Sakairi from the Jazz Gallery called upon these three acclaimed musicians to participate in a fundraiser. Despite their preexisting musical ties, they all felt a unique spark in the mysterious flow of this musical encounter. They have steadily developed the project over the ensuing years, each musician serving as a composer and creative soloist, bringing each of their distinct backgrounds and strong personalities into the group dynamic.

Their shared composer orientation gives the ensemble a special, continually evolving quality. These artists are not only electrifying performers, but also visionary creators and thinkers. As Threadgill states, “each time we come together to perform, it seems brand new… We’ve got three composers here. Every time the music changes, it holds up a different world, because it’s coming from a different place—because of each one of us, [and] our different approaches to composition.”

Vijay Iyer has carved out a unique path as an influential, prolific, shape-shifting presence in twenty-first-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. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, three Grammy nominations, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the Greenfield Prize, a Dutch “Edison” Prize, and two German “Echo” awards; he was also voted DownBeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times. He has been praised by Pitchfork as “one of the best in the world at what he does,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.”

His recent albums include Thereupon (Pi Recordings, 2025) by Fieldwork, featuring Iyer, saxophonist Steve Lehman, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey; Defiant Life (ECM, 2025), his second suite of duets with visionary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith; Compassion (ECM, 2024), featuring his celebrated trio with Sorey and bassist Linda May Han Oh; Trouble (BMOP/sound, 2024), a composer portrait album comprising three of his orchestral works; and Love in Exile (Verve, 2023), his Grammy-nominated collaboration with Arooj Aftab and Shahzad Ismaily. Iyer is also a prolific composer for classical ensembles and soloists, with works premiered by London Philharmonic, Oregon Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Brentano Quartet, Imani Winds, Parker Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, Sō Percussion, International Contemporary Ensemble, and virtuosi Jennifer Koh, Matt Haimowitz, Mishka Rushdie Momen, Claire Chase, Inbal Segev, Sarah Rothenberg, and Shai Wosner.

The New York Times observed, “Iyer’s music has always been both intelligent and unpretentious, complex without being opaque; [he] ponders a phrase with obsessive rumination, unveiling layers of shifting, subtle emotion, before letting it fly with joyous abandon.” He is a professor at Harvard University.