Midtown’s Sony Hall became a collective sound experiment on Tuesday as British singer-songwriter and producer Jacob Collier led NYU students through an immersive event that blurred the line between performance and lecture.
Collier was named Artist-in-Residence of the Sony Audio Institute Studio — part of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development’s $7.5 million partnership with Sony — on Feb. 12. Widely recognized for his interactive performances and genre-bending sound that fuses technical elements of jazz, pop and folk, Collier has earned seven Grammy awards and 16 nominations over the last eight years. His wins are predominantly in arrangement categories, with his latest being his ethereal cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
Throughout his spring 2026 residency, the singer will hold composition and production workshops for Sony Audio Institute students and lead a semester-long collaborative project, selecting standout participants to attend his creative retreat in Italy this summer.
“Jacob represents the kind of boundary-pushing musical imagination and technical curiosity we want our students to learn from — someone who can move seamlessly between artistry, craft and innovation,” Steinhardt professor and institute director Larry Miller wrote in a press release.
As Tuesday’s event began, Collier ran through the aisles and onto the stage, basking in the audience’s applause. He wasted no time turning listeners into participants, asking the crowd to “ooh” and “ahh” in unison, gradually layering voices into a choir-like harmony.
“Singing in a group is profound,” Collier said at the event. “You feel empowered, but also kind of small in a nice way.”
He then took to the piano to play his first song of the night, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve, reshaping its familiar melody while inviting the audience into his performance in layers. Collier led the room in waves of clapping, some fast and some slow, and instructed some sections of the room to stomp, emulating a percussion section.
After his performance, the singer took his shoes off and sat comfortably on a chair in the center of the stage to address the audience and reflect on his early relationship with music.
“I struggled as a child to know what to call myself,” Collier said. “Because really, what I was first was an enthusiast.”
Collier explained that his creativity grew out of curiosity, tracing his enthusiasm back to his upbringing in London as the oldest of three children, raised by a single mother. He described candlelit evenings and conversations with his family about the salt and pepper shakers being friends — small, intimate moments that taught him to see everyday moments as stories waiting to be discovered.
“Music, like the natural world, is made up from stories, not facts,” Collier said. “It’s a collage of human experience.”
Repeatedly crediting artistic collaboration as central to his growth as an artist, Collier spoke about learning from notable industry figures such as late musician Quincy Jones and emphasized the importance of listening deeply to creative partners. He also discussed working with artists like SZA and Tori Kelly, noting that collaboration often reveals lessons that individual work cannot.
“Even the most powerful artists in the world still refer to the musicians that made them,” Collier said.
After responding to audience questions, Collier ended the evening with a moving medley of songs — he returned to the guitar and piano to play his 2016 song “Hideaway,” followed by a cover of The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” and a snippet of his 2020 hit “All I Need.”
For his final act, Collier returned to his signature interactive approach. Guiding the audience through one last round of rich, layered harmonies, the angelic choir filled the hall with vibrant energy, leaving students buzzing for the semester to come.
Contact Rhea Kohli at [email protected].