Elio Villafranca & The Jass Syncopators
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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.
Announcing 2020 Visionary Awards Recipient
2020 First Commission
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Ilaria Loisa Hawley
Quando L'acqua riflette (When the Water Reflects)
Performed by Face The Music
Isabella Caurucci, flute
Yusei Hata, melodica
Oriana Hawley, viola
John Waller, triangle
Vasudevan Panicker, coach
Born in 2009, Ilaria Loisa Hawley is the recipient of a 2019 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and the inaugural recipient of Claire Chase's Pnea Foundation Young Flutist Award. Ilaria's music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic and Face the Music, and she is a composition student of Mathew Fuerst and a flute student of Zara Lawler. She attends PS 314 Muscota New School and enjoys drawing, drama, reading, rock climbing, and making earrings.