"I'm writing music about how humans interact with each other," Immanuel Wilkins declares in a new video interview with the MacArthur Foundation. This artist statement significantly undersells the intrigue in Wilkins' work, though it conveys a basic truth.
Today Wilkins, 29, was officially announced as one of the 2026 MacArthur Fellows. The fellowship, known as the "Genius Grant," comes with an unrestricted $800,000 award. It's an immensely prestigious honor, but also just the latest step in a creative journey for Wilkins, one that WRTI has observed at close range.
In 2011 — when Wilkins was in his early teens, participating in programs at the Settlement Music School and the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts, under the guidance of Lovett Hines — WRTI's J. Michael Harrison welcomed him and a few of his peers into our studio, where they filmed a performance.
Seven years later, during Wilkins' time at Juilliard, he returned to WRTI with his newly formed quartet, with Micah Thomas on piano, Daryl Johns on bass and Kweku Sumbry on drums. Among the pieces they performed was "Brothers in Arms," which Wilkins recently brought back into circulation for the all-star Blue Note session Out of/Into.
Wilkins signed to Blue Note around this time, releasing his debut, Omega, in 2020. Because of global pandemic restrictions, he wasn't able to tour behind that album. So it was with his second release, The 7th Hand, that Wilkins began to get his message out to the world at large. One of his first stops was back home in Philadelphia, where he performed an early album-release concert at PhilaMOCA, in a special co-presentation of Ars Nova Workshop, WRTI, and NPR Music's Jazz Night in America.
In the MacArthur video, Wilkins speaks to the concept of experimentation. "There's something around abstraction and the avant-garde that is also rooted in care," he says, "and a certain level of mystery and subversiveness." Those qualities were all present in a 2022 concert that he played with tenor saxophonist Odean Pope, another of his Philadelphia elders, and the Danish drummer Kresten Osgood. Co-presented with Ars Nova Workshop at the Ruba Club, this concert was as a kickoff for Dangerous Sounds, a WRTI podcast, hosted by Osgood, that explores the evolution of jazz in Denmark.
In 2024, Wilkins released his third Blue Note album, Blues Blood, an adaptation of a performance piece that he had been developing for several years. He talked about the project on a Year in Review episode of The Late Set podcast, and presented it last year at the Penn Museum.
Earlier this year, Wilkins reunited with Pope for RECESS, a site-specific installation at the Power Market in North Philadelphia, presented by Ars Nova Workshop. He also released his "Live at the Village Vanguard" statement, in three volumes. Wilkins and his quartet are back at the Vanguard this week, Tuesday through Sunday. Over the weekend, they were joined by bassist William Parker and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts in a tribute to John Coltrane, part of Ars Nova's Coltrane 100 Festival. The concert, which unfolded as a collective improvisation of more than 90 minutes, captured an intention that Wilkins expresses in the MacArthur Foundation video profile.
"When people encounter my work, I hope they see a level of beauty, whether that be notes or the sociality of the band, or the audience," he says. "I want to create moments for encounter, and I want those encounters to be beautiful."
