Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra will take the stage at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall on Sept. 19 in what could be a watershed moment for a deepening commitment by the Segerstrom Center to the Latino community, its artistry and its culture.
The Center is pulling out all the stops to make it a red-carpet welcome for O’Farrill, a six-time Grammy Award-winning pianist, composer, bandleader and educator, who in March was named the Center’s first-ever artist in residence. Saturday’s concert will be his debut in that role, to be followed by a series of performances, educational programs and community engagement initiatives over the next year.
“Arturo’s residency is an opportunity for us to do more than simply present extraordinary music,” said Limor Tomer, the Center’s vice president of programming and production. “We want to build a genuine relationship with the community through his artistry. We’re hoping to create a space where the Hispanic community in Orange County feels not only represented, but truly welcomed, celebrated and invited to see the Center as a place that belongs to them, too.”
O’Farrill formed the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra in 2002 when Wynton Marsalis, director of jazz at the Lincoln Center, asked him to create a resident Latin jazz orchestra. For nearly a quarter century, the orchestra has performed many works from the Latin jazz canon, including compositions by O’Farrill and his legendary Afro-Cuban jazz father, Chico O’Farrill, as well as commissioning new works.
Since 2013, the orchestra has had a weekly residency at New York City’s famed Birdland jazz club. The orchestra has evolved into a group that transcends musical boundaries, having formed creative alliances with prominent artists and ensembles in other genres as well as with choreographers and dance companies including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. O’Farrill has won two Grammy Awards for Best Instrumental Composition, for “The Afro Latin Jazz Suite” (2016) and “Three Revolutions” (2018). He also has won four Grammy Awards for Best Latin Jazz Album, the latest in 2023 for “Fandango at the Wall in New York,” a live album.
Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble perform at Jazz St. Louis in 2023. Video from Jazz St. Louis YouTube channel
O’Farrill acknowledges that “bringing seemingly disparate worlds together is always the goal of my life,” but takes a perhaps more expansive view of his residency than Tomer, saying, “I want to touch people where they live. To leave my agendas, artistic or otherwise, behind and find a way to draw people close to each other. Costa Mesa is a very diverse area, culturally, politically, socio-economically and certainly ethnically. As with everything I do, I desire to bring all those elements together and find a sacred space where we gather and connect despite our differences. … In this particular residency I find the distinct potential for openness based on the staff and patrons I’ve met thus far.”
As an educator and community builder, O’Farrill has held positions at State University of New York and Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of Music. In 2019 he was appointed distinguished professor of global jazz studies and associate dean for equity, diversity and inclusion at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music.
The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra has an educational program serving public schools in New York City with instrumental and ensemble instruction, a pre-professional youth orchestra, and an anti-violence program that connects young people with music and storytelling from global cultures. This year O’Farrill’s nonprofit Belongó broke ground on a permanent cultural hub for music education, performance and community engagement as part of a 340-unit affordable housing project in East Harlem.
“For his first performance, we’re hoping to set this tone for his residency,” Tomer said. “We want audiences to feel the energy, history and joy in Arturo’s music, and to leave feeling connected to the artists onstage, to one another and to the broader cultural community around them.”
Going forward, O’Farrill will perform Copacabana Nights, an homage to the legendary New York City jazz nightclub, on Feb. 19; and Rumba para Monk Revisited, honoring the groundbreaking 1989 recording by Jerry González and the Fort Apache Band, on May 7.
EVENT DETAILS
Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
When: 8 p.m. Sept. 19
Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Tickets: Start at $51
More Info: scfta.org
On July 9, O’Farrill and the Pacific Symphony will debut his Lowrider Symphony, a work currently in progress that promises an exploration and celebration of a unique facet of Southern California Chicano culture.
“The sounds of lowrider culture are very percussive,” O’Farrill said. “The mechanical sounds of automobile modification, the hydraulic sounds of cars that jump up and down all seem to me to be sounds of joy and investment in a larger approach to the humdrum of everyday life. The pachuco style is very melodic to me and the juxtaposition of colors and geometric iconography of Chicano culture scream out large orchestral colors. I see magic in the lowrider culture. A denial of the difficulties of life and instead a concerted effort to find richness in the most common materials. I will find a way to spend time with the people of Costa Mesa and absorb these themes so I can create musical elements that reflect this beauty.”
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