“an elegant array… truly universal music” – NBC News
DAKOTA DEBUT
Arturo O’Farrill, pianist, composer, and educator was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. Arturo’s professional career began with the Carla Bley Band and continued as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.
Winner of six Grammy Awards, Arturo has performed with orchestras and bands including his own Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and Arturo O’Farrill Sextet, in the US, Europe, Russia, Australia, and South America.
In 2007, he founded the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the performance, education, and preservation of Afro-Latin music. In December 2010 Arturo traveled with the original Chico O’Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra to Cuba, returning his father’s musicians to his homeland. He continues to travel to Cuba regularly as an informal Cultural Ambassador, working with Cuban musicians, dancers, and students, bringing local musicians from Cuba to the US and American musicians to Cuba.
An avid supporter of all the arts, Arturo has performed with Ballet Hispanico and the Malpaso Dance Company, for whom he has written three ballets. In addition, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company has in its repertoire a ballet entitled Open Door, choreographed by Ron Brown to several of Arturo’s compositions and recordings. Ron Brown’s own Evidence Dance Company commissioned Arturo to compose New Conversations, which premiered in the Summer of 2018 at Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, MA.
Arturo has received commissions from Meet the Composer, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Philadelphia Music Project, The Apollo Theater, Symphony Space, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Young Peoples Chorus of New York, Columbia University and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Recommended for Fans of Chucho Valdés, Danilo Perez, The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and Arturo Sandoval.
LEARN MORE: https://arturoofarrill.com/
LEARN MORE ABOUT ALJA HERE: http://www.afrolatinjazz.org
