Elio Villafranca & The Jass Syncopators featuring Jeremy Pelt: Life Stories

Wednesday, February 19, 2020, at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm

This is an archived event, not part of the current festival.

10 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

Elio Villafranca

Cuban-born pianist Elio Villafranca is known for his inventive and ambitious projects that fuse Western jazz with a cross-continental array of influences, including an extensive breadth of percussion and Latin rhythms. Villafranca is often featured in The Appel Room, and tonight's performance is a great opportunity to catch him while he's back in our most intimate venue.

Life Stories:
Life Stories is a program of original music by Elio Villafranca written for this band that offers a window to his own artistic, musical and as well as humanitarian journey. From Haiti to Cuba to Spain to New Orleans, his life experiences are told through the rich Afro diaspora's landscape. The program will also premiere two movements of Villafranca's newest suite "Don't Change My Name," which is a tribute to the compelling story of Florentina Zulueta, who is regarded as a Dahomanian Princess within the Arará culture community in the region of Matanzas, Cuba.