Arturo O'Farrill

Performance
Thursday, January 16, 2020

GRAMMY Award winning pianist, composer and educator Arturo O'Farrill – leader of the "first family of Afro-Cuban Jazz" (New York Times) – was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. Son of the late, great composer Chico O'Farrill, Arturo was educated at Manhattan School of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. He played piano in Carla Bley's Big Band from 1979 through 1983 and earned a reputation as a soloist in groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis and Harry Belafonte. In 2002, he established the GRAMMY® winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra in order to bring the vital musical traditions of Afro Latin jazz to a wider general audience, and to greatly expand the contemporary Latin jazz big band repertoire through commissions to artists across a wide stylistic and geographic range.

Following his 2009 GRAMMY® Award for "Best Latin Jazz Album" for the Orchestra’s debut recording, Song for Chico (ZOHO), O'Farrill has received numerous GRAMMY® wins for The Offense of the Drum ("Best Latin Jazz Album"), Cuba: The Conversation Continues ("The Afro Latin Jazz Suite," "Best Instrumental Composition"), and his album with Chucho Valdés, Familia: Tribute to Bebo & Chico, won a GRAMMY® Award in the "Best Instrumental Composition" category for his composition, “Three Revolutions.” Cuba: The Conversation Continues won a 2016 Latin GRAMMY® for "Best Latin Jazz Album." In September 2018, O’Farrill released his latest album, Fandango at the Wall: A Soundtrack for the United States, Mexico, and Beyond, featuring the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Antonio Sanchez, Regina Carter, Akua Dixon, Mandy Gonzalez, Patricio Hidalgo, Rahim AlHaj, and Ramón Gutiérrez Hernández.

Arturo O'Farrill is on the faculty of The Manhattan School of Music and The New School. In 2019, O’Farrill was appointed a Professor at The Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, in the Global Jazz Studies department. O’Farrill is a Steinway Artist.

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