Home » Search Center » Results: Omar Sosa Quarteto Afro Cubano
Results for "Omar Sosa Quarteto Afro Cubano"
Scenes from the 2023 DC Jazz Festival
by Matt Hooke
An embassy may seem like an unusual place to kick off the 2023 DC Jazz Festival, but it made for a good indication of the international and collaborative atmosphere fostered by the annual event. The DC Jazz Festival opening night at the House of Sweden, the embassy for Sweden and Iceland, began with a ...
Results for pages tagged "Omar Sosa Quarteto Afro Cubano"...
Omar Sosa
Born:
Composer-pianist-bandleader Omar Sosa was born in 1965 in Camagüey, Cuba's largest inland city. At age eight, Omar began studying percussion and marimba at the music conservatory in Camagüey; in Havana, as a teenager, he took up piano at the prestigious Escuela Nacional de Música, and completed his formal education at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. Among his influences, Omar cites traditional Afro-Cuban music, European classical composers (including Chopin, Bartok, and Satie), Monk, Coltrane, Parker, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Chucho Valdés, and the pioneering Cuban jazz group Irakere. Moving in 1993 to Ecuador, Omar immersed himself in the folkloric traditions of Esmeraldas, the northwest coast region whose African heritage includes the distinctive marimba tradition. He relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995, and soon invigorated the Latin jazz scene with his adventurous writing and percussive style.
