“Latin Fire” is about to get a whole lot hotter when it comes to Costa Mesa’s Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall on Friday, Feb. 16 and Saturday, Feb. 17.
This celebration of Latin American orchestral music features sizzling arrangements by Pacific Symphony’s new principal pops conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez and trumpet soloist Jose Sibaja. The show has been drawing raves from Nashville to Omaha, Detroit to Baltimore, among the dozen city orchestras where Lopez-Yañez has already conducted it.
But joining “Latin Fire” for the first time – and for his first time ever performing at the Segerstrom Concert Hall – will be Arturo Sandoval. A legend among jazz lovers, the Cuban-born trumpeter and composer is a 10-time Grammy winner and 19-time Grammy nominee, who also boasts an Emmy award and the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“This is the first time that we’ve added the second component, which is Arturo on the second half of the program, which for me is so exciting,” said the 32-year-old Lopez-Yañez, who earned a master’s degree in trumpet performance at UCLA before becoming a conductor. “Because, of course, for me as a trumpet player, he’s an icon and someone I’ve always admired and looked up to. I’m so excited to get to collaborate with him.”
Sandoval has been performing for more than six decades starting at age 12, but he says he’s never lost the thrill of entertaining an audience, whether it be in a small club or a grand hall.
“The difference for me is not the size or the type of hall, right? It’s how the audience reacts, how they respond to what we do on the stage,” said the 74-year-old trumpeter in a Zoom interview from his Los Angeles home, complete with a Cuban cigar in hand and an easy smile on his face. “And that’s the only thing. If the people really appreciate what we are doing and they, you know, respond, that’s a good place.”
Appreciating jazz might as well be a civic duty for American…
Read the full article here