Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
featuring guest vocalist Claudia Acuña
Friday, January 26, 2024
7:30 PM Performance
9:00 PM VIP Post-Show Reception and
Meet & Greet with Arturo O'Farrill*
Pfleeger Concert Hall
The multi Grammy Award-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (ALJO), led by pianist, composer, and Artistic Director Arturo O’Farrill, blends the drama of big band jazz, the culture of Latin music, and the virtuosity of eighteen of the world’s most accomplished solo musicians. Eighteen years of critically acclaimed performances internationally have firmly established the ALJO as a standard-bearer. Their innovative repertoire pushes the genre forward, reflecting Arturo’s dual sensibilities of contemporary, improvisational jazz, honed by his work with the likes of Carla Bley, Lester Bowie and Dizzy Gillespie, with the Latin Jazz traditions pioneered by his father, the legendary Chico O’Farrill.
*VIP Tickets available while supplies last
This engagement of Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra is made possible through the ArtsCONNECT program of the Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Banner image: Laura Mariet
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Artist Bios
Arturo O’Farrill, pianist, composer, and educator, was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. He is the leader of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (ALJO), which he founded in 2002 in order to bring the vital musical traditions of Afro Latin jazz to a wider general audience, and to expand the contemporary Latin jazz big band repertoire through commissions. 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.
Arturo’s well-reviewed and highly praised “Afro Latin Jazz Suite” from the album CUBA: The Conversation Continues (Motéma) took the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition and the 2016 Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. His powerful "Three Revolutions" from the album Familia-Tribute to Chico and Bebo, recorded together with the great Chucho Valdes and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra was the 2018 Grammy Award (his sixth) winner for Best Instrumental Composition. In 2019, O’Farrill was appointed a Professor at The Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, in the Global Jazz Studies department.
Claudia Acuña
Reflection and re-dedication are steady themes in the life and work of Chilean jazz vocalist Claudia Acuña. Following her dynamic debut on the NY scene in the 1990's she released five albums as a leader before slowing down to adjust to motherhood and restore her power. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, she returned refreshed and reborn and in 2019, delivered the Latin Grammy nominated album Turning Pages, representing reclamation, recovery, survivor and documenting a major creative leap.
For much of the past decade she's put her recording career on the backburner to focus on raising her son. Instead of touring, she's stayed closer to home, where her keen intelligence and intrepid spirit has made her the vocalist of choice for many of jazz's most creative figures. Read more at claudiaacuna.net
About the Marie Rader Presenting Series
The Marie Rader Presenting Series at Rowan University brings exceptional artists to campus, enriching the university community and the Greater Southern New Jersey region through expanded performing arts programming, bolstering a robust academic program in dance, music and theatre. Every Marie Rader engagement not only brings an artist to campus to perform, but also offers transformative coaching opportunities for Rowan students, and meaningful exchanges with community partners throughout the region.
Because of the Marie Rader Series, you don't have to travel to New York or Philadelphia to see some of your favorite, most influential leaders in dance, music, theatre and beyond. This series is also designed to introduce you to artists you wouldn't otherwise encounter-- artists who reflect not only the future of performing arts, but who help us envision a better world, right now, right here in South Jersey.
The series is made possible in part through generous support from the Henry M. Rowan Family Foundation via the Marie Rader Memorial Fund and through funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
If you enjoy a Marie Rader experience, please support the series by spreading the word, and if you have the means, we welcome your financial support as well.
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