Arturo O’Farrill to Begin Residency at Harlem School of the Arts
The Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance has announced that its founder, the pianist and composer Arturo O’Farrill, is now an artist in residence at the Harlem School of the Arts. He joins the choreographer Twyla Tharp, who inaugurated the residency program last fall.
As an artist in residence Mr. O’Farrill and his band, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, will have access to rehearsal space and an administrative office at the school’s new Herb Alpert Center, at 645 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 141st Street). That’s a step forward for an organization that hasn’t had a comparable base of operations since parting ways with Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2007. In recent years, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra had rehearsed at the Musicians Union Local 802, and at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.
The orchestra, which won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2009, will maintain its relationships with two regular performance outlets. It can be heard every Sunday night at Birdland, where Mr. O’Farrill previously led a legacy edition of his father’s celebrated band, the Chico O’Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra. And the orchestra presents a season of concerts each year at Symphony Space, often commissioning new music. (It will also perform on July 10 as a part of Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing, with the percussionist Tito Rodriguez Jr.)
“The Harlem School of the Arts reflects the core values of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, a commitment to excel at the highest levels in your art coupled with a promise to serve the community regardless of socioeconomic position,” Mr. O’Farrill said in an e-mail. “We look forward to serving the beautiful children, faculty and staff of this inspiring institution, built by world class artists not interested in cultural elitism.”
By NATE CHINEN