Miamibloco: Building community one samba groove at a time

SuOm Francis and Brian Potts are the founders of Miamibloco who will be hosting Miamibloco Saidiera Social at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Monday, May 29.  (Photo courtesy of Osmany Torres)

The definition of Bloco de Carnaval in a dictionary will likely turn up “street bands” or “a group of musicians and dancers who perform during the Brazilian Carnaval, typically parading through the streets.”

But there is more to blocos than that, says performer and educator Brian Potts, founder and director of Miamibloco, a percussion ensemble that mixes traditional samba and elements from various musical traditions in South Florida.

“Bloco is a community event. It’s people spontaneously gathering in the street or rehearsing loosely before carnival. It’s not set up, so here you have the professional musicians, and here are the amateurs. It’s just people playing music, and it’s what binds these communities together,” says Potts, who received his Doctor in Musical Arts (DMA) from the University of Miami, who” fell in love” with Brazilian music and has been traveling to Brazil to study and perform for the past 13 years. “Think of the bloco and all that it involves as a community-building technology.”

Inspired by the approach of Batuquebato, a Brazilian group in which he also plays in Rio de Janeiro, Potts opened the drumming of Miamibloco to other music beyond samba.

“I’m never going to be Brazilian,” says Potts, a long-time South Florida resident born in Dallas, Texas. “And we’re never going to be of Rio de Janeiro. We’re always going to be from Miami, and what Miami has to offer is this incredible mixture and diversity of cultures and music. So we try to be ourselves and take the influences of the people in the group.”

Miamibloco’s Bateria Saideira, the bloco’s performance group, will play at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Memorial Day. The “From Samba to Gnawa” event will feature the 40-plus-member drumming ensemble, augmented by artists from Brazil, Morocco, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Colombia. The guests include multi-instrumentalist Munir Hossn, Jason Matthews, keyboardist of Electric Kif, local favorite guitarist and deejay DJ Le Spam, percussionist Gilmar Gomes and Grammy-nominated Moroccan musician Samir Langus and his group.

Saideira translates as “nightcap,” here a musical nightcap; Monday’s show is the third installment of Miamibloco’s Saideira Social.

In Potts’s words, the performance is “an opportunity to show what a bloco can do.”

“Throughout the evening, we’ll be playing samba but also electronic music, cumbia, and a collaboration with Langus, a master in the Gnawa tradition, and his group,” says Potts. “He is bringing in a whole other tradition, and we’re going to build something new together, which I think is a very exciting thing. ”

Additionally, Langus will be hosting a Miamibloco pre-party on Saturday night. He and his group will be presenting Gnawa music and will be joined by members of Miamibloco. “It’ll be an intimate jam session,” says Potts. (8 p.m., Saturday, May 27, TheUnderstory, 7135 NW 1st Court, Miami; $15 in advance, $20 at the door.)

In the bloco, trained and amateur musicians play side by side. Those new to musical performance not only learn to play the instruments and patterns of samba but how to work together as an ensemble. Call it community-building — with a groove.

“I see Miamibloco as a way of teaching people about community and community participation,” says SuOm Francis, Miamibloco’s co-founder and director of community operations. “You may play one instrument, one note, but if you’re not there, there will be a void. Your note is important for the sound of the group. (Playing in the bloco) is a tool to belong to Miami in a different way.”

Miamibloco only recently became officially a non-profit organization. So far, it’s been self-funded and “very grassroots,” says Francis. “We’re only doing it when and if the Miami Beach Bandshell has a space, and they have opened their doors to us.” The saideiras are part of the Bandshell Laboratories residency program sponsored by The Rhythm Foundation.

Still, the ensemble offers several programs, including community workshops, which Francis describes as “contained, one-hour experiences,” the Bateria Academy,  a two-month course with weekly rehearsals and supplemental videos created to develop technique on your chosen instrument, and the Bateria Saideira, which is Miamibloco’s performance group. Membership is open to anyone through an audition process.

In the community workshops, “we don’t go very deep musically, but within an hour, we’re doing something together,” says Potts. “And getting that many people playing music together is very powerful.”

The bloco “is like a force to fight against all of the struggles that everybody has to go through in their everyday life, and all the separation we feel from each other, being locked in front of our screens, locked in our own little worlds,” he continues. “Bloco gives you a reason to come and be with people and make art together, and in doing so, break through many of our social boundaries.”

WHAT: Miamibloco’s Bateria Saideira with guests Munir Hossn, Jason Matthews, DJ Le Spam, Gilmar Gomes, and Moroccan musician Samir Langus and his group.

WHERE: Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach.

WHEN: 6 to 10 p.m., Monday, May 29

COST: $25, $35 at the door, $300, private cabana for 6 with server

INFORMATION:   786-453-2897 or miamibeachbandshell.com and eventbrite

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news.

Review: Jazz at Koubek a sampler of some of Miami’s finest musicians

LaVie II performs at Jazz at Koubek at Miami-Dade College’s Koubek center on the second night of the three-night festival, which kicked off on Thursday, May 11. (Photo courtesy of Osmany Torres)

The audience hung on every note and every word that Dr. Ed Calle submitted from the stage. It was the second night of Jazz at Koubek at Miami-Dade College’s Koubek Center.

On Friday, May 12, it was like watching a masterclass in jazz excellence. Usually, Calle is a professor at MDC. But that night, he gave a lesson in jazz, drawing on his accomplished career as a musician for some of the greatest pop stars in Spanish and English. Between stylish cuts of smooth jazz driven by his powerful tenor and alto saxophone playing, he told plenty of bilingual anecdotes about recording for Frank Sinatra and getting Julio Iglesias to call his mother.

“Isn’t this a beautiful place? I feel like I’m in my living room,” the musician said of the intimate theater, which holds no more than 200 people. Located in a historic Mediterranean-style mansion on SW 3rd Street and SW 27th Avenue, the performing arts center hosts a variety of events including theater, dance, and literary events. Now, they’re expanding into more musical programming with Jazz at Koubek, the multi-day festival featuring the best of Miami’s formidable local jazz scene.

“We wanted to do a bit of a sampler,” Melissa Messulam, general manager at the Koubek Center, says of the event, which is part of a pilot program and the center’s first program focusing on the genre. “Jazz in particular, for us we consider it a varied and vast genre.”

Messulam says the festival is part of a new direction in programming for the venue. The theater organized the festival in response to the dwindling number of live music venues in the county, intending to give Miami’s prodigious local jazz community a new platform to perform.

“We saw during the pandemic how necessary local venues are for musicians,” says Koubek. “Yes, you can record, yes you can go on tour, but you also need a connection to your local community.”

The festival’s lineup is meant to reflect both the multiculturalism found in Miami, as well as give the Koubek’s local community in Little Havana a taste of the various flavors of jazz available here. The event kicked off on Thursday, May 11 with a piano showcase, displaying more classically-aligned jazz from Israeli pianist Tal Cohen and 17-year-old Brandon Goldberg. Closing night on Saturday, May 13, featured electric jazz from Lemon City Trio and experimental guitarist Lebos, a veteran of Spam All-Stars and Nu Deco Ensemble who played that night with his new band Abstract Citizen.

Friday night was designed as a “world” night. In addition to Latin jazz from Calle and his backing band, most of whom were originally from Venezuela, the night featured Haitian-American jazz vocalist LaVie. The singer, performing barefoot with a bold red updo hairstyle, ran through a series of impressive covers, ranging from standards like “Fly Me To The Moon” and Nina Simone’s “My Baby Just Cares For Me” to new pop classics like “Sweetest Taboo” from Sade and a Haitian compas-inflected take on Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music.” LaVie captivated the crowd with a playful stage presence reminiscent of Janelle Monae, while her backing band delivered a hip-hop inflected style similar to Robert Glasper, the Roots, and other contemporary jazz.

That idea is central to the venue, which prioritizes its location in the heart of Little Havana. Upcoming events there include plenty of theater events, including Spanish-language children’s plays on Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, 21 and the International Hispanic Theater Festival in July. A showcase from the duo Brooklyn-Cumaná, which fuses folk music from Venezuela and the U.S., is also planned for June. There are also dance classes and studio space for artists, as well as a garden where children’s activities are hosted.

Events at the Koubek also tend to be less costly than concerts at larger venues. Fans of national acts are seeing ticket prices rise into the four-figure range thanks to a range of issues from scalpers snapping up first-run tickets to Ticketmaster’s “dynamic” demand-based pricing.

Meanwhile, tickets for Jazz at Koubek were listed at $15 for pre-sale and $20 at the door per night. That means attending all three nights would cost a mere $60 per person at its highest price. That’s comparable to a single night at a Ticketmaster venue like Revolution Live thanks to added fees. At Koubek one also receives the benefit of supporting local music, a priceless bonus, Messulam says.

“When you come out and support you’re not just supporting a venue, you’re supporting a local talent base,” she says.

Jazz at Koubek was held Thursday, May 11 through Saturday, May 13 at the Koubek Center, 2705 SW 3^rd St., Miami. For information about upcoming events, call 305-237-7750 or koubekcenter.org.

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Not your abuela’s flamenco group: all-female Las Migas comes to Miami

Marta Robles, Alicia Grillo, Carolina Fernández “La Chispa” and Laura Pacios are the Grammy Award winning musicians of Las Migas coming to the Miami-Dade County Auditorium for FlaminGO 2023 on Saturday, May 20. (Photo courtesy of Analía López.)

If the South Florida air feels different, it may be because the Barcelona-based flamenco group Las Migas has blown in from the Mediterranean. The four-woman powerhouse brings its fresh and sunny take on Spanish rhythms to the Miami-Dade County Auditorium on Saturday, May 20.

The concert will showcase the group’s latest album, “Libres,” winner of the 2022 Latin Grammy Award for Best Flamenco Album. It’s an eclectic collection of tunes that takes listeners on a tour of American genres such as country, rap, pop and jazz, all lending their different flavors to a flamenco that is as lighthearted and fun as it is carefully crafted.

The album’s title, “Libres,” sums up the way the quartet feels about their art: music should be about being free — to mix and mingle and to combine influences from other styles and idioms. And while flamenco is an ancient art form, steeped in tradition and bound by a set of rules, singers from the legendary Camarón de la Isla to Spanish phenom Rosalía have been bending rules and breaking with tradition for decades. Las Migas has been a part of this flamenco evolution since the band’s inception in 2004, and “Libres” is their latest rallying cry for artistic freedom.

When Las Migas started, it was a group of classically trained female musicians from Barcelona’s prestigious Escuela Superior de Música with a mutual interest in taking a deep dive into flamenco. Composer, guitarist and singer Marta Robles, the only extant member of that original band, says theirs was not so much a grand plan as an informal proposition.

“We felt like finding out more about the flamenco world and wanted to make music together,” says Robles. “That’s how ‘Las Migas’ came about, in a very casual way. But it worked really well.” When the concert dates kept coming in, the women realized they were onto something.

As with Motown groups like the Temptations or the Supremes, Las Migas has kept its signature sound despite the departure and arrival of different performers in its nearly 20-year trajectory.

Silvia Pérez Cruz, now a star in her own right, got her start as one of the group’s founding members before branching off for a career as a solo artist. Changing and rearranging with each new permutation of the band, the constant for Las Migas has always been the music, which maintains at its core a delicious blending of vocal harmonies on a guitar-rich base. Added to the mix is a single violin, a less-common sound for flamenco that helps give Las Migas a unique flavor.

“Las Migas without a violin wouldn’t be Las Migas,” says Robles. Laura Pacios, one of the newer members of the band, is classically trained but chameleonic, on one track sounding like she’s onstage at a postwar Paris jazz club, on another sounding like she just stepped off the tour bus of country female supergroup The Highwomen.

Like her coconspirators, when Pacios isn’t playing, she’s singing.

VIDEO: Las Migas – El querer de una morena

“Normally, the voice really defines a band,” says Robles. “For us, the voice is important, but so are the guitars and the violin.” In addition to Pacios and Robles, guitarist and singer Alicia Grillo and singer and dancer Carolina “La Chispa” Fernández complete the quartet. With their nontraditional approach to flamenco, “Las Migas” has created a personal style that pulls from a wide diversity of genres yet still retains its Spanish essence.

“I think our trademark is flamenco with its own stamp. A very personal style of flamenco, a flamenco that’s very rich in details and that’s it. Sometimes it’s more pop, sometimes it’s more son (a traditional Cuban rhythm that later became the basis for salsa), sometimes it’s more urban,” explains Robles. “We’re free to be open and to mix with absolutely anything.”

With “Libres,” freedom of expression isn’t limited to the music, either. In the land of Las Migas, a girl gets to love whomever she pleases—openly and unapologetically. “Antonia,” for example, is not about a don Juan but a doña Juana, a player who makes a hobby of going around breaking young girls’ hearts until, finally, one especially bewitching woman comes along and robs hers.

“It’s a love story between two people that just happen to both be women, that’s all. It’s normalized,” says Robles, adding, “Well, in some places more than others, right?”

Guest artist María Peláe, one of a small number of Spain’s out lesbian flamenco singers, joined the group to record “La Cantaora,” an urban, rap-infused take on flamenco. More muted growl than roar, it still comes across as a power anthem for women’s equality: “I’m not the first one that stands up firm/And says ‘Enough.’/And says, ‘Enough.’” She could be singing about any one of a number of powerful female artists that Robles says she looked to for inspiration when composing and self-producing “Libres.”

“Divas like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, or Latinas like Shakira . . .those strong women who are standing up and have fought so hard to have their place in what is still a very machista market on the basis of really hard work.” Noting her own group’s staying power, Robles says, “We’re lucky—to be able to continue working, to continue traveling down new paths.”

Like those women she so admires, the women of Las Migas are unafraid and unbowed.

WHAT: The Centro Cultural Español presents FlamenGO 2023 with Las Migas

WHERE: Miami-Dade County Auditorium, 2901 W. Flagler St., Miami

WHEN: 8 p.m., Saturday, May 20.

TICKETS: $40 general admission.

INFORMATION: (305) 448-9677,  ccemiami.org, ticketmaster.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, visual arts, music and performing arts news. 

The Betsy’s Overture to Overtown jazzes it up all month long

Pianist Tal Cohen is a regular in The Betsy Hotel’s jazz lineup and performs in its 11th annual Overture to Overtown Jazz Festival happening throughout the month of April. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Daniel Asbury Mixon doesn’t just play the piano.

For him, it is a rhythmic exchange steeped in melodies and beats that bounce off his audience and reflect backs on his soul.

“It’s highly spiritual,” he says.

Of course, those who listen in are an essential part of the process.

“I want to take them somewhere else for a while and that’s what I love to do.”

The Harlem-based internationally recognized pianist plans to continue his mission by bringing his musical magic to The Betsy Hotel’s 11th Annual Overture to Overtown Jazz Festival in April.

Mixon, who is serving as The Betsy Hotel’s Artist-in-Residence, is looking forward to the event.

“I feel blessed. And this will be my third time so whatever I did the first time is working,” says Mixon. “I’m going to bring my best.”

This year the festival will feature an entire network of talented artists who will perform at participating venues including Lummus Park in Miami Beach, Hampton Art Lovers’ Ward Rooming House’ in Overtown and Barry University in Miami Shores as well as in The Betsy Hotel Lobby Salon.

Carole Ann Taylor, a jazz vocalist and the festival’s co-producer, said that the event has grown in the past decade.

“Every year we’ve expanded more and more,” she says.

Taylor performs with Mixon and his trio, along with vocalist Kaya Nicole, on Friday, April 21 at the Hampton Art Lovers (Historic Ward Rooming House), 249 NW 9th St., in Overtown. On Saturday, they’ll perform together in the Lobby Salon of The Betsy Hotel.

“This year we are actually having a performance on a daily basis. We’re also including other locations especially in Overtown, which is known as the ‘Harlem of the South,’ ” says Taylor. “And we are excited to work with a couple of venues in Overtown that will be included in our itinerary for the first time. We’re just joyous about the fabulous musicians that will be performing on a daily basis.”

Following a month-long tribute, the festival will wrap up with The Betsy’s International Jazz Day programs on April 30. Tal Cohen, a regular at The Betsy and an Australian/Israeli pianist who has Miami as his base will kick off the finale inside The Betsy at 11 a.m. Spoken word artist Rebecca “Butterfly” Vaughns opens for the Melton Mustafa, Jr. Quartet on the Ocean Drive Promenade in front of the hotel at 7 p.m.,  presented in partnership with the city of Miami Beach and Ocean Drive Association. The Edgar Pantoja Latin Jazz Trio rounds out the activities by playing until 11 p.m.

“It is, what I would call, a communion between Miami Beach and Overtown and the connections that they have had in the past with jazz musicians,” says Taylor.

In fact, it is the examination of the musical roots of this genre coupled with a closer look at its local flavor, that has helped to launch their event.

Deborah Briggs, the hotel’s vice-president of arts and community, and Jonathan Plutzik, who owns and operates The Betsy Hotel, recalls how it all began.

“Jonathan and I took a tour of Overtown about 10 years ago with some folks that were wanting to bring attention to the jazz history in Overtown,” says Briggs. “It was then that I really learned about the rich history of Overtown as it relates to jazz.”

She recalls that the hotel already had begun its jazz program. “So that first year, we brought in singers from Overtown. And three of them came in and stayed at The Betsy. We invited all sorts of students in the jazz programs at the colleges because we wanted to celebrate their stories and let them perform.”

Organizers also recognize how much Overtown has cemented its role in history since it was a well-known refuge for artists like Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Josephine Baker. At the time, Black musicians and artists were all affected by segregation laws that made it illegal for them to remain on Miami Beach after their performances.

VIDEO: Inspicio: Meet Jonathan Plutznik, the son of a poet

“It was a beautiful history between the communities of Miami Beach and Overtown but there were some realities as to why Overtown came about because Black musicians couldn’t sleep in Miami Beach,” said Briggs. “So we wanted to revisit it in a positive way.”

Their efforts have not been in vain.

“It has grown in the past 10 years from five performances to what it is this year, which is 48 performances, most of them on Miami Beach, but some of them in Overtown. And we’re sharing musicians back and forth,”  says Briggs. “We’re revisiting that legacy and celebrating it.”

Mixon believes that the cultural and historical elements of the genre is something that should be passed on to future generations.

“United States of America needs to embrace this music and promote it for our children,” says Mixon. “Our children need to know about Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan,  Count Basie, Frank Foster and the big bands: Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers and Louis Armstrong. It’s very, very important that children know the history of this music. They don’t have to be a musician but they need to know that this music was born in the United States and that this is our music.”

Plutzik believes that the festival plays a part in passing on that tradition. He has seen firsthand how it has affected those who just happen to be in the immediate area.

“What I really revel in is watching the people who discover the concert by walking by,” says Plutzik. “And to see these young people of all ages, and all colors stopping and suddenly spending 45 minutes listening to people that if they had seen on a program I’m not sure they would have said, ‘Yeah I might go to that concert.’ Our hope is that people come in and discover it.

Visual arts are part of the multidisciplinary aspect of the Betsy’s 11th Annual Overture to Overtown. The Betsy Orb, a work of public art installed in the passageway between Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, will display a projection curated by Miami’s collaboARTive. Art at The Betsy Orb will feature a visual montage of historic photographs and images of artwork by Overtown artists of today on Thursday, April 20, from 7 to 11 p.m.

WHAT:  The Betsy Hotel’s 11th Annual Overture to Overtown Jazz Festival

WHERE: Various locations including the Betsy Hotel, 1440 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach

WHEN: Through the month of April, culminating on April 30

COST: Free

INFORMATION: For a full list of performances visit thebetsyhotel.com/overture-to-overtown

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They’ll put a spell on you: French-Cuban duo Ibeyi finishes out U.S. tour at Miami Beach Bandshell

Twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz make up the musical duo Ibeyi, who bring their transcendent live show to the Miami Beach Bandshell on Sunday, April 2. (Photo courtesy of  Suleika Muller)

For twin sisters who not only shared their mother’s womb for nine months, but also stages, studios, screens, and a tour bus for ten years, Lisa-Kaindé Díaz and Naomi Díaz couldn’t appear more different. Lisa seems gentle, good, and a tad nerdy. Harder to read, Naomi is quieter but gives off the air of being someone who’d be more than willing to whup the behind of anyone who dared mess with her sister. Together they form the duo Ibeyi, which capitalizes on the talents of each in a musical alchemy that has entranced world audiences and musical royalty alike—their fans range from the late Prince to Beyoncé, from Adele to Lin Manuel Miranda.  The French-Cuban sister act perform on Sunday, April 2 at the Miami Beach Bandshell, presented by the Rhythm Foundation.

“Miami is the last show of our U.S. tour,” says Lisa, “so we want everybody to come celebrate!” You may think you know Ibeyi from their recordings, but the real magic is in seeing the captivating artists perform live.

On a Zoom call from the aforementioned tour bus, which was making its way from a sold-out performance in Brooklyn to another sold-out venue in Boston, the two look relaxed, their sweaters and flannel a far cry from the sleek Chanel outfits and rhinestones they donned for the intimate May 2022 release party for their newest album, “Spell 31,” at London’s Hoxton Hall. And with makeup or without, it’s plain to see why the Queen B would use them for her “Lemonade” music video. Drop-dead gorgeous and disarmingly charming, the twins seem born for the limelight, comfortable with their fame and happy to be sharing the road, wherever it leads, with one another.

Lisa is the more cerebral of the twins; the wordsmith who writes all the lyrics for their songs, she’s also more likely to take the lead in conversation. Naomi, a percussionist whose rhythms are the beating heart of their music, at first appears content to sit back and let her sister do the work of explaining the inspiration behind “Spell 31” and the artistic journey they have taken together in the years since they released their first CD in 2015.

“It’s an album full of hope, full of energy, full of healing, at least for us,” says Lisa of “Spell 31.” They wrote co-wrote the music during the pandemic, with Lisa in at her home in London and Naomi in Paris.

“At a moment of a lot of doubt and fear, we realized that we wanted to make an album to celebrate the things that we hadn’t taken the time to celebrate and to heal the things that we hadn’t taken the time to heal,” Lisa says. That healing comes through in songs like “Creature (Perfect),” which speaks of letting go of perfection and living in the moment, “Los Muertos,” a strangely soothing recitation that simply lists the names of loved ones lost, and “Sister 2 Sister,” a hymn to girl power at its finest, to the extraordinary bond the young women feel with one another.

“We wanted to celebrate our sisterhood,” says Lisa of “Sister 2 Sister.” “We had written love songs for many people . . .but we had never written a love song for each other.”

Both musicians embrace experimentation and evolution, and the sound of the ten tracks on “Spirit 31” feels bigger, more produced than their previous two albums, while still hewing true to the pair’s musical roots in Cuban rhythms and haunting Yoruba harmonies.

“The only rule we have in music and everything is that we don’t want to repeat,” says Lisa. “We want every single time that we do something for it to have something new for us and challenging for us and interesting for us to discover through the making of it.”

The title of the album refers to an incantation in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It hints at the many mythological elements that run like a golden thread through the album’s lyrics. Lisa quotes the spell verbatim:

“‘Oh, you with the spine, who would work your mouth against this magic of mine. It has been handed down in an unbroken line. The sky encloses the stars, and I enclose magic.’”

I asked if there was a spiritual practice that informed their creative work.  It was clearly a question they had been asked many times before, and that Naomi seems weary of answering. “I think we don’t think of it so much,” she responds.

“For me,” Lisa says, “there is nothing more spiritual than making music. It’s what is connecting ourselves to each other, to our dad that passed away, to our culture, to our reality, to the world.”

She explains that the Yoruba elements that have always infused their albums were always a part of their lives, which they spent between Paris, where they grew up with their Venezuelan French mother, and Havana, where they would frequently go to visit their Cuban father, renowned conga player Miguel “Angá” Díaz (1961-2006).

“I am the daughter of Yemayá and Naomi’s the daughter of Changó,” Lisa says, referring to the Yoruba deities of water and of thunder. “We were initiated in our mother’s belly. It was something quite natural and personal and easy to find because it was always there–there was no coming back. It felt like singing with our ancestors on stage every night.”

Singing with their ancestors and, always, singing with one another.

“Our differences are our strength,” Lisa says. “We have found our creative purpose together.”

The opening act for Ibeyi will also have audiences seeing double. The Colombian duo Vale is made up of sisters Valentina and Valeria Pérez and was nominated for a 2022 Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. Although, like Ibeyi, they shared a womb, they’re actually two of a set of triplets.

WHAT: Ibeyi presented by the Rhythm Foundation

WHEN: 7 p.m., Sunday, April 2

WHERE:  Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach

COST: $39.14

INFORMATION:  786-453-2897 and miamibeachbandshell.com

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Stéphane Denève, only the second artistic director in NWS history, has plenty to be excited about

Stéphane Denève leads New World Symphony at its 2023 gala in March. He’ll make his public debut as the orchestra’s new artistic director on Saturday, April 8, in a concert at New World Center. (Photo courtesy of Kristin Pulido, Blooming Photo Co.)

It’s the second conversation, albeit over Zoom, in recent weeks that New World Symphony’s new artistic director, Stéphane Denève has made himself available one-on-one to get acquainted.

This time, the maestro is speaking from a hotel room. “Here I am in Vienna, and I can prove it,” he says, turning the computer screen around to show the view from his window, displaying a picture-perfect landscape of the Austrian city.

Denève has just begun a tour with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, his fourth season as the thirteenth music director of the orchestra. It’s a lightning schedule throughout Europe with performances in Vienna, Brussels, two performances in the Netherlands, and then ending in Madrid.

Only nine days after the whirlwind, he’ll step onto the podium in Miami Beach at the New World Center on Saturday, April 8, in a program titled “Denève’s Debut.” It will be his first public appearance with the orchestra since being named New World Symphony artistic director; only the second person to hold the esteemed role in the symphony’s 35-year history.

It was in 1987 when renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas along with philanthropists Lin and Ted Arison co-founded the New World Symphony, an intensive and highly competitive three-year postgraduate fellowship program to prepare musicians for professional careers in orchestras and ensembles throughout the world.  Tilson Thomas was also instrumental in the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center, now a landmark in downtown Miami Beach, which opened in 2011.

On March 2, 2022, a new chapter for the New World Symphony would begin. Tilson Thomas released a statement that he was stepping down from the role he had held for more than three decades after announcing his diagnosis of Glioblastoma Multiforme, a type of aggressive brain cancer. “Currently the cancer is in check, but the future is uncertain . . . recurrence, is, unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception,” he wrote.

The 78-year-old assumed the role of artistic director laureate and almost a year to the day of the announcement, on March 4, 2023, was at the New World Center for a gala in his honor where he took to the podium on the Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall stage to lead the orchestra with guest artist, friend, and colleague, cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

After a search for a replacement, the New World Symphony’s board announced in September of 2022 that they had found the right person to continue and nurture Tilson Thomas’s dream project — a 51-year-old French conductor who had, since 2006, led the NWS as a guest conductor. Denève remembers meeting Tilson Thomas when he made his debut that year.

“We had lunch together and spoke about Beethoven, and he got carried away by emotion. I thought, ‘What an artist, what a real artist.’” Denève says he had always admired the conductor, listening to his CDs as a teenager growing up in Roncq in northern France. He recalls seeing Tilson Thomas live at a performance hall in Paris. The renowned interpreter of the works of Gustav Mahler was conducting “Symphony No. 10,” the composer’s final work before his death.

“That concert changed my life and to this day remember it as a very cathartic experience,” says Denève, who now looks forward to working with Tilson Thomas in his role at New World Symphony. “I am only the second artistic director for a good reason. He’s really the father of this institution and I respect him so much for that. He will continue to be present in his musical home,” he says.

Denève’s debut concert will offer a sense of where the new artistic director will lead the fellows, introducing new works that he wants to explore together with the musicians and audiences — finding those “new classics” that he says can begin as a premiere and then maybe enter into repertoire,” he says, adding that he is fascinated by the idea of how a piece of music “sticks.”

“Even in pop music . . .like the Beatles who composed thousands of songs, yet there are only a few of them that entered the canon. Even Mozart composed almost 700 pieces, but only a few entered the repertoire forever. It is fascinating to search and find that rare crème de la crème piece that can become the classic of the future.”

The Saturday, April 8 program features three works that have never been performed at New World Center including Henri Dutilleux’s “Métaboles.” “It’s a beautiful piece by a French composer that was commissioned by an American orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra in 1959 and (music director) George Szell premiered it in 1965. Richard Strauss’ monumental “Ein Heldenleben—A Hero’s Life,” is also on the program. “It is one of the biggest pieces written for an orchestra and the fellows are extremely excited to play it,” says Denève.

While each piece is equally exciting, he is looking forward to a work featuring baritone Davóne Tines. “He is a real creator in addition to being a great baritone and is engaged in the music of today. He’s created this new format where there is a concerto for voice and orchestra,” explains Denève.

Entitled “Sermon,” Tines begins his three-song cycle with text from James Baldwin, then into John Adams’ “Shake the Heavens” from “El Niño,” a Langston Hughes poem, “Hope,” is followed by a piece composed by Tines and Igee Dieudonné. “And then directly, and without interruption, we hear Jessice Care Moore’s ‘Exegesis,’ and he finishes with a long aria from “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” by Anthony Davis,” says Denève, his voice reaching a crescendo in excitement.

Denève uses the word cathartic again like the emotional moment he was in the audience drinking in Tilson Thomas’s performance in Paris. “I think what is very important is that sometimes you want people to have a cathartic experience — where people go from listening and hearing into being moved into action, into changing their lives or changing the lives of others,” he says.

The music director adds that he is excited to be part of working with the new generation of musicians that are the current fellows at New World Symphony. “They seem to be much more in sync with the world we live in and go beyond just playing great music. They have the desire to interact and this is exactly what this piece of music is about – going beyond music to share ideas.”

While he’ll spend much time in Miami Beach, he doesn’t have plans just yet to make a permanent move. He just settled with his wife and 15-year-old daughter in St. Louis last summer after moving them from Brussels and he will continue as music director of the St. Louis Symphony. This year, he’ll also begin his tenure as principal guest conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

“Music directors many times live in one place and work in another. You can travel easily. And who wouldn’t want to come to Miami Beach whenever possible?” he says.

On the heels of Denève’s debut, New World Symphony announced its 2023-24 season The new artistic director will lead the fellows of New World Symphony eight times throughout the season in programs inspired by tropical landscapes, including a Sept. 16, 2023, performance of Claude Debussy’s “La mer,” Benjamin Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” and Adolphus Hailstork’s “An American Port of Call” and in the finale concerts on May 11 and 12, 2024 with a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and John Williams’ first “Violin Concerto.”

Tilson Thomas also returns in eight performances bringing with him guest artists, pianists Emanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the music of some of his personal favorite composers Aaron Copland, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, as well as his own work “Agnegram.” To see the complete season, click here.

WHAT: “Denève’s Debut” with New World Symphony

WHERE: New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall, 500 17th St., Miami Beach.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 8

COST: $35, $50, $60, $75, $85, $100

INFORMATION: 305-673-3331 or 800-597-3331, also nws.edu

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Bailey’s back: Cellist played first South Florida Symphony concert 25 years ago

Cellist Zuill Bailey joins the South Florida Symphony Orchestra for its “Masterworks IV: Dvořák” program, part of the orchestra’s 25th anniversary celebration. (Photo courtesy of South Florida Symphony Orchestra)

Zuill Bailey is feeling nostalgic days before he is set to perform with the South Florida Symphony Orchestra. The Grammy award-winning cellist has a history with the symphony, particularly with Sebrina Maria Alfonso, its founder and conductor.

“I performed 25 years ago in Key West. I may have been their first soloist in their first season,” says Bailey. The year prior to when what was then the Key West Symphony made its debut, Alfonso called upon Bailey to play in a recital with pianist Jeffrey Chappell. “I wanted people then to understand that we weren’t going to be a community orchestra, but the symphony would be made up of professional musicians. They were blown away by Bailey and Chappell.”

The symphony’s first concert, which featured Bailey as a soloist, was inside the Tennessee Williams Theatre on Dec. 11, 1998.

Bailey and Alfonso first connected while in Baltimore at The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. “He must have been in pre-college there and I was a doctoral candidate,” Alfonso says, recalling that his sister, violinist Allison Bailey, had been part of a small orchestra the Maestra had been asked to start at Baltimore’s Goucher College. She had mentioned her brother, Zuill, who was a cellist and Alfonso says she was immediately taken by his talent.

“I’ve watched him grow and become the amazing cellist that he is,” she says.

Bailey has similar feelings about watching Alfonso develop her orchestra into a formidable organization now marking its quarter-century with a series of concerts, which began in November and continues through April.

The “Masterworks IV: Dvořák” program” continues the season on Wednesday, March 22 at The Parker in Fort Lauderdale, Thursday, March 23, at the New World Center on Miami Beach, and Saturday, March 25 at the Tennessee Williams Theatre in Key West. Bailey performs with the orchestra for Dvořák’s “Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104.”

“Here we are 25 years later. It’s astonishing to me. I feel like I’ve been around since the very start of this when I began witnessing her dream come alive at that recital in Key West,” recalls Bailey. “It’s overwhelmingly exciting to come back and play arguably the greatest cello concerto ever written. It is an honor.”

Bailey has been recognized for his mastery of the Dvořák concerto. In fact, his CD “Dvořák Cello Concerto” is listed in “The Penguin Guide to the 1,000 Finest Classical Recordings: The Must Have CDs and DVDs.”

He admits that his “musical partner for 25 years,” a 1693 cello created by Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller, makes the concerto even more spectacular to play. Bailey’s cello is one of only two made by the stringed instrument craftsman with a rose carved at the top of the fingerboard.

“Just talking to you now, I thought of this,” Bailey says. “I got the cello around the same time as the South Florida Symphony was created.”

The special instrument never leaves Bailey’s side, he admits. “It is so dear to me that it travels exclusively with me.” He reveals that he buys a seat next to him as he flies the world performing with “Cello Bailey.”

He remembers when he met what he calls the “love of his life.” After borrowing cellos for “quite some time,” he was introduced to the instrument that had been used for 30 years by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet. “I knew that it was to be my instrument when I first saw it.”

While the cello is museum-worthy, Bailey says “it is something that needs to be played. And I get to be the caretaker of this magnificent instrument.”

Then he recalls another memory that happened just around the time he discovered his treasured cello.

Bailey says he was approached by a producer from Home Box Office (HBO) around 1997 to appear as a murderous cellist on the series “Oz.”

“I had already established myself as a performing cellist. I didn’t want to be an actor. Rita Moreno and Ernie Hudson were on the show, they were actors.” It wasn’t so much Bailey’s fear of not saying the lines believably, but about the profession he had really started building at the age of 13. “I said to the producers, ‘People who don’t know me will think this is me and I don’t want to be seen as something I’m not,’ so they cut almost all of my lines. In fact, no one still knows exactly why the character did what they did,” he says, since most of the time he was on camera in the three episodes in which he appeared, Bailey was playing music.

“Still to this day, people recognize me from that TV show,” he says.

At 50 years old, the world-class cellist who has collaborated with some of the world’s best symphonies says he feels fortunate to return to South Florida to be part of the orchestra’s 25th-anniversary celebration.

“I have been traveling since my late teens and Florida has been one of the places I have played since the very beginning,” he says. Last March, Bailey performed with the New World Symphony led by guest conductor Roderick Cox.

“It brings back so many memories . . . so many of my Florida memories are about working here with Sebrina. This really is a moment in time to celebrate the evolution of an idea that has been realized – the musical gift that Sebrina wanted to bring home to South Florida,” says Bailey.

WHAT: South Florida Symphony Orchestra in “Masterworks IV: Dvořák”

WHEN AND WHERE: Wednesday, March 22, The Parker, 707 NE 8th St., Fort Lauderdale; Thursday, March 23, New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach; Saturday, March 25, Tennessee Williams Theatre, 5901 College Road, Key West. All shows at 7:30 p.m.

COST:  $25 to $95.

INFORMATION: 954-522-8455 or southfloridasymphony.org

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Meet Miami’s The Last Hundred classical ensemble

Miami classical ensemble The Last Hundred performs its second program of 2023 on the campus of University of Miami on Tuesday, March 28 in a free concert. (Photo courtesy of José Camacho)

Hear the phrase, “The Last Hundred,” and many flash to the title of a flick about the last stand of warriors determined to fight the good fight in the face of what seems difficult odds.

For many living classical composers, having their works performed for live audiences can seem like just that kind of fight.

For this reason, one of Miami’s newest classical ensembles took its name, The Last Hundred, from its mission to promote classical works composed within the last 100 years.

The decision to form the group came from collaborative activity between the current members right before the pandemic hit and put plans on hold.

“Juan Trigos, myself and Federico Bonacossa were working together on different musical projects in 2019 and talked about starting an ensemble,” says Daniela D’Ingiullo, The Last Hundred’s soprano and manager.  “Juan Trigos came up with the idea of promoting music composed in the last 100 years to create a liaison between 20th-century repertoire and contemporary music.”

Trigos, artistic director, composer and conductor, explains that his motivation for forming the group comes from his love of how classical music evolves over time.

“For me, each period has its charm and mystique,” says Trigos.  “I do not think any of them is better because they are more or less modern or old, but because of its own constitution and artistic proposal.”

Trigos emphasizes that though the vocation of the ensemble is to present works composed over the last 100 years, it does not mean that the members see contemporary music as better than the works of earlier periods.

“What is trendy now or progressive is not necessarily better than the old,” says Trigos. “As an example, I can say that the language that is chosen for a given writing or reading is not better in itself than the other. In other words, Japanese is not better than Turkish, it is just different.”

Bonacossa recalls conversations the members had around forming an ensemble after completing a project with Sinfonietta MQ, another group Trigos founded in Mexico.

“We almost immediately began discussing the idea of creating an ensemble in Miami,” recalls Bonacossa. “Catalina (von Wrangell), a close friend and former classmate, joined in right from the beginning. I am very proud of what we have accomplished so far.”

The clarinetist, composer, and the ensemble’s documentarian, says she was attracted to the group by its mission to perform new classical compositions for Miami audiences.

“Since our focus is the last hundred years,” says von Wrangell, “my hope is that we can strike a balance between sharing the music that already belongs to the canon and music that is lesser known, as well as newly commissioned works.”

Its program on Tuesday, March 28, at the St. Bede Episcopal Chapel clearly reflects the group’s commitment to performing new works in intimate and inviting settings, but it also reflects another of its commitments – to perform works by composers of the Americas.

Trigos says that the logic behind opening the program with Heitor Villa-lobos’ gorgeous string duo for violin and cello, “Choros bis” (first performed in Paris in 1929) was to maximize the contrast between the program’s works.

“The objective is to present the diversity of aesthetics, styles and expressiveness of the different composers,” explains Trigos, “so that the public receives and enjoys it as it is and without prejudice. The reason for including Villa-lobos corresponds to our programming vision. He is undoubtedly one of the best-known Latin American composers, but “Choros Bis,” even if it is gorgeous, is not that well known.”

Bonacossa’s invitingly titled new work for classical guitar, “A sparrow flies at a woman as she stares at a crescent moon,” is a concerto The Last Hundred Years will premiere during the program. Bonacossa admits to some otherworldly inspiration for the work.

“The title of the composition is simply descriptive of an image I saw during a tea leaf reading,” reveals Bonacossa.  “I have, for many years, been fascinated by divination techniques and sometimes use them as a method for sparking creative ideas. The images and sequences one reveals during a reading are usually metaphors but may also be appreciated for what they are –  in this case, a sparrow that flies towards a woman as she stares at a crescent moon.”

Rounding off the program is Trigos’ 2022 work, “El Poema de Tlaltecatzin (Poem of Tlaltecatzin) for Soprano and Ensemble.”

Created with grant support from Harvard University’s Fromm Music Foundation, the poem tells the story of Tlaltecatzin – a 14th-century lord of Cuauhchinanco, which now forms part of the present state of Puebla, Mexico.

“He lived in the dawn of a cultural renaissance when Tzcoco was about to become a center of wisdom and art,” says Trigos. “This poem could be described as an ode to pleasure, but  (it is) a kind of composition very different from European or modern American literary creations. As is the case among the songs of several other Nahuatl composers, Tlaltecatzin’s words about pleasure are interwoven with an anguished sense of the loss of oneself through death.”

Using the original text in Nahuatl and its translation in Spanish, Trigos composed the work in seven movements.

D’Ingiullo will sing four of the movements.  She admits Trigos’ work posed several challenges.

“This is a very demanding work in two different aspects, the rhythmic and the vocal technique,” says D’Ingiullo.  “In this very last aspect, I refer especially to the wide vocal range and the different types of vibrato used (slow, fast, measured) alternating with no vibrato.”

In one movement D’Ingiullo must play the grelots (sleigh bells) while vocalizing in “sprechgesang” – a type of vocal performance halfway between singing and speaking.  Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady” utilized this form of song-speech in “Why Can’t the English Learn to Speak?”

Despite its demands, the vocalist has high praise for Trigos’ work.

“I think this is a masterwork, full of sensual atmospheres, sometimes sad, combined with the sweetness of the Nahuatl language,” says D’Ingiullo.

WHAT: The Last Hundred

WHEN: 7 p.m. pre-concert talk with performers, 7:30 p.m. concert, Tuesday, March 28

WHERE: Chapel of the Venerable Bede, Episcopal Church Center at University of Miami, 1150 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables

COST: Free, but must be reserved in advance ($10 donation suggested)

INFORMATION: www.thelasthundred.org

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There’s Plenty Of History In Florida Grand Opera’s ‘Tosca,’ Including Pavarotti

Todd Thomas in his Florida Grand Opera debut as Scarpia in 2014 returns in the role for the company’s 81st season production of “Tosca” with shows at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami Saturday, March 18, Sunday, March 19, and Tuesday, March 21. It then plays the Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale, in April. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon)

There are at least five good reasons Florida Grand Opera has performed Puccini’s “Tosca” almost a dozen times in 50 years, even featuring tenor Luciano Pavarotti in one of the roles in 1981.

“To me, it’s everything that people think opera should be: It has a villain, great romance, revenge, it’s epic with a big chorus, period costumes, and gorgeous sets, and lush, sweeping music that, while it may not be in commercials, audiences will recognize it,” says Susan T. Danis, FGO’s general director and chief executive officer, who adds that FGO first presented “Tosca” in 1950.

“What’s not to love about ‘Tosca’?,” says former Metropolitan Opera Assistant Conductor Gregory Buchalter, who is conducting FGO’s production, which will be performed in Miami at the Adrienne Arsht Center Saturday, March 18, Sunday, March 19 and Tuesday, March 21, and in Fort Lauderdale at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, April 13 and Saturday, April 15.

Buchalter says this is the opera for people who haven’t been to an opera. “Even if you don’t know much about opera, it’s like going to a movie. There’s so much drama and action going on.”

A tragic story of passion and jealousy, it tells the story of opera singer Floria Tosca, as she fights to save her artist-lover Cavaradossi from the sadistic police chief Scarpia, who lusts for Tosca. Scarpia proclaims that Cavaradossi assisted an escaped political prisoner and imprisons him in order to get his grips into Tosca. He tells Tosca that she can either give herself to him or he will have her lover killed.

Baritone Todd Thomas has performed Vitellio Scarpia for decades, a role that has the reputation of being the evilest villain from an opera ever.

“This may just be my year for Scarpia,” says Thomas, who will be singing the role for Florida Grand Opera’s production, and who, last November, was Scarpia in Lynchburg, Va., at Opera on the James, in January portrayed the same character at Opera Memphis, and in July, will return to Virginia for “Tosca” at Charlottesville Opera.

“I performed the role first in Germany in 1996,” Thomas recalls. “I was looking at my (musical) score the other day, and it says 1993, so it’s been in my library for a while.”

He’s no stranger to Florida Grand Opera, including appearing as Scarpia in his FGO debut in “Tosca” in 2014, and that same year in “Madama Butterfly.” In 2017, he returned to FGO to perform in Verdi’s “A Masked Ball” and last season sang the title role in the opera company’s “Rigoletto.”

Thomas says performing “Tosca” with FGO is the place he’ll get to flex his opera muscles. “Not to disparage the other companies where I’ve performed the role recently and upcoming, but with this being FGO’s 81st year, they have a huge history to call upon — the fact that Pavarotti sang here, well the history is immense.”

Having the opportunity to be part of what he calls “a cast that’s talent across the board,” to sing with a full orchestra and in large concert halls such as the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Ziff Ballet Opera House and Broward Center for the Performing Arts’ Au-Rene Theater makes a difference, too, he says. “There is a full-size orchestra in the pit, between 50 and 60 musicians and the person conducting the orchestra (Gregory Buchalter) has been with the Metropolitan Opera for 30 years,” he says. He’s also worked with director Jeffrey Marc Buchman before, who was previously a professional operatic baritone.

“He knows where the singers live and their comfort level unlike perhaps a theater director coming into the opera without that knowledge,” he says of Buchman. Thomas reveals that in a recent production of “Tosca,” where he was performing Scarpia, the director chose to heighten the violence. “The fight coordinator was busier than the stage director,” he recalls. “But Jeffrey isn’t choosing that – he keeps the integrity of the music and it’s more of a cerebral power play. That’s interesting,” Thomas says.

Danis says she’s thrilled about the entire cast and especially two singers in leading roles. Playing Mario Cavaradossi is Arturo Chacón-Cruz. “He is going to blow people away, a Mexican-American tenor that sings throughout the world from Salzburg to San Francisco but lives here in Aventura,” Danis says. As Tosca, Toni Marie Palmertree makes her FGO debut. “Toni Marie made her Metropolitan Opera debut last Fall, and she is on an upward trajectory. She has such beautiful color in her voice.”

But it might have been that no company or singer ever uttered a note of “Tosca” because it almost didn’t get made. Giacomo Puccini used French playwright Victorien Sardou’s “La Tosca,” as the source for his opera “Tosca.” Sardou had written his play in 1887 as a star vehicle for famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. “Puccini saw the play twice and immediately wanted to turn it into an opera. But Sardou disliked Puccini’s music and wanted it to be assigned to a better-known composer, and preferably a French one,” explains Cindy Sadler, a professional mezzo-soprano opera singer and the marketing-communications manager at FGO.

Puccini’s publisher eventually obtained the rights. On Jan. 14, 1990, “Tosca” premiered in Rome, where the story is set.

“ ‘Tosca’ could be a Netflix series today,” says Buchalter, “and we could drag it out for six seasons. Audience members who have never been to an opera will get hooked . . . they’ll be on the edge of their seats.”

WHAT: Florida Grand Opera’s “Tosca”

WHEN: Saturday, March 18, Sunday, March 19 and Tuesday, March 21, also Thursday, April 13 and Saturday, April 15.

WHERE: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., and Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW 5th Ave., Fort Lauderdale.

COST: $16, $21, $29, $39, $44, $47, $51, $70, $73, $79, $85, $89, $101, $128, $138, $155, $164, $179, $200, $210, $230 and $255 depending on show and performance venue.

INFORMATION: 800-741-1010 or fgo.org

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Jazz in the Gardens has evolved and so has its lineup of musical acts

LaVie is appearing in this year’s “Jazz in the Gardens” along with other local artists and big names such as Jill Scott, Jodeci and Erykah Badu. The festival is Saturday, March 11 and Sunday, March 12 at Hard Rock Stadium. (Photo courtesy of JITG)

There’s a reason for the longevity of Miami Gardens’ biggest music party, Jazz in the Gardens. The success of the event lies, according to Rodney Harris, the mayor of the city of Miami Gardens, in “giving people what they want: unforgettable entertainment, exotic food, and a good time.”

The two-day festival on Saturday, March 11 and Sunday, March 12, is at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, where it got its start in 2006 when the venue was Dolphins Stadium.

Hailed as a celebration of Black music and culture, Jazz in the Gardens (JITG) touts a diverse lineup of both new and old school rhythm and blues, neo-soul, reggae, and gospel artists, and, this year, aligns performers such as Jill Scott, Jodeci, Ari Lennox, El Debarge, and Adam Blackstone on Saturday, then and Erykah Badu, Sean Paul, Mike Phillips, Chandler Moore, Kierra “Kiki” Sheard and Pastor Mike Jr. on Sunday.

“We have grown from a small (one day) local jazz festival in 2006 with barely 1,000 people in attendance, to a massive . . . .mega entertainment brand that has attracted over 70,000 weekend-ticket buyers,” says Harris. The city organizes the music fest in partnership with Live Nation Entertainment and Live Nation Urban.

The festival returned in 2022 after taking a two-year hiatus because of COVID-19.

Harris says the festival grew along with the city of Miami Gardens, which is celebrating its 20 years of incorporation as the 33^rd city in Miami-Dade County.

“(The) spirit of evolving excellence has been passed down to our signature event, Jazz in the Gardens.”

It was the idea of the city’s first leader, Mayor Shirley Gibson, and received support from the City Council at that time, with the aim of showcasing Miami Gardens as “where you want to be,” says Harris. “The festival has helped us magnify our profile globally,” he says.

Although jazz was the original focus of “Jazz in the Gardens,’ the organizers gradually began including a variety of genres in response to public demand. Harris says that’s reflective of the diverse tastes of its attendees.

“JITG is, at its heart, a good ole’ family reunion,” says Harris, while adding that the festival attracts big names in the music industry.

“They leave the snow for the sunshine of South Florida and the excitement of JITG.”

In addition to renowned performers, the festival also showcases local artists. Jody Hill, who is participating in the festival for the second time, says it is an exhilarating experience to perform alongside other musicians “who have shaped the way we experience music.”

For Hill and other local artists, the festival provides an opportunity to share the stage with big-name talents and connect with a wider audience.

“I remember feeling inexplicably thrilled, knowing that one of my dreams had come true,” says the recording artist and songwriter, who was born and raised in Miami Gardens. “Being asked to participate in yet another JITG festival far exceeded my expectations, and I’m simply grateful for the ongoing support.” Hill performs in the Sunday, March 12 lineup.

April RaQuel performed at Jazz in the Gardens in 2016 and returns this year as a local, featured artist on Saturday, March 11.

“I will never forget the experience. It was the first time I had the opportunity to perform in front of an audience of that size, on a stage that big, and as a part of an event of this magnitude,” says the “proud native of South Florida.”

WHAT:  Jazz in the Gardens 2023

WHERE: Hard Rock Stadium, 347 Don Shula Drive, Miami Gardens

WHEN: Parking lot opens at 2 p.m., gates at 3 p.m., performances begin at 4 p.m., Saturday, March 11 and Sunday, March 12

COST: Tickets range in price from $105 for single-day general admission to $135 for 2-day passes (fees not included). One day reserved seat ticket prices are $150, $160, $170, $180, $250, and $260. 2-day ticket prices for reserved are $195, $205, $225, $235, $325

INFORMATION: jazzinthegardens.com

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Alex Cuba talks Grammys, Canada, music and being at the center of Miami’s Global Cuba Fest

Alex Cuba performs with his trio at the Miami Beach Bandshell in Global Cuba Fest 2023 on Saturday, March 4. (Photo courtesy of Camus Photography)

When Cuban singer-songwriter Alex Cuba won his first Grammy award last year, he wasn’t in Havana or Miami. He was driving through a snowstorm, heading home from a concert to his rural hometown in northwestern Canada, when his phone rang. It was his New York publicist.

“He said, ‘Dude, please be stationary – I’ve got a lot of people trying to reach you,’ ” recalls Cuba, whose given name is Alexis Puentes. Then, he says, he asked the publicist “Why?”

“And he said ‘Dude, you don’t know?’ ”

The musician’s self-produced album “Mendo“, created during the pandemic, had just won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album.

“It was intense, exhilarating, unbelievable,” says Puentes, 48. And one more milestone for the Cuban musician who’s created a uniquely independent, yet world-spanning musical identity from Smithers, British Colombia, a mountain town of a little more than 5,000 people and 14 hours north of Vancouver. He has lived there since 1999 with his Canadian wife, Sarah Goodacre, of 28 years, and their three children.

He loves Smithers where they put up a mural honoring his Grammy win in the middle of downtown. “To some people, it might seem impossible to have a career from such a remote place,” says Puentes, who’s released multiple albums on his own label, earning four Latin Grammys and multiple Canadian awards. “To me, it shows that I’m good enough to do anything from anywhere. I like how I can quiet my mind, I can focus 100 percent. There are no excuses here.”

Now Puentes comes to Miami, the capital of Cuban exile, where on Saturday, March 4, his trio along with surprise guests Kelvis Ochoa, Luis Enrique, Munir Hossn, and Robert Vizcaino Jr., will play the lone concert of Global Cuba Fest 2023. The celebration of Cuban music across the diaspora is marking its quince this year at the Miami Beach Bandshell.

Although Puentes played Global Cuba in 2009, he hesitated at returning, concerned whether Miami Cuban audiences would accept his music, which ventures far beyond the island’s typical popular styles. “I focus a lot on crafting music with a huge variety, it’s hard to pinpoint me in a specific genre,” says Puentes. “For Cubans that’s sometimes difficult. But my team – that’s Sarah, my wife – said that’s exactly why you should go.”

Indeed, Global Cuba Fest celebrates how Cuban musicians, whether from the island, or, more often, around the world, continuously reshape their rich musical traditions. It’s an artistic mission that acknowledges the reality that political shifts in Cuba and the U.S. mean artists often emigrate, and it’s not always possible to present artists from the island in Miami.

“What we set out to do, whatever political party is in office, is put the greatest musicians from Cuba onstage,” says Beth Boone, artistic and executive director of the Miami Light Project, which co-produces Global Cuba with fellow Miami presenter FUNDarte. “As we had to navigate different political realities, we expanded the mission and vision. That was the best thing that could have happened. Because it forced us to look at Cuban musicians living in Spain, Morocco, Brazil, Miami, New York – and British Colombia.”

The festival has featured groundbreaking fusion acts, like 1990’s icons Habana Abierta and influential Havana collective Interactivo. Dafnis Prieto, the brilliant jazz drummer who now teaches at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, made his Miami debut at the first Global Cuba in 2008; and stellar jazz acts like Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Yosvany Terry have been regulars. The festival introduced Miami to Cuban funk sensation Cimafunk in 2019. South Florida-based acts have included Albita and Tiempo Libre.

FUNDarte founder and executive director Ever Chavez says the festival also showcases how the island’s musical diaspora changes music elsewhere. “Cuban artists who leave intoxicate people with Cuban music, influence other musicians around the world with their virtuosity, excellence, and approach,” says Chavez, a producer in Havana before emigrating to Miami in 2000.

Puentes is a prime example of that global influence – a result of love and chance. He grew up in Artemisa, a small city in Cuba, and followed his father,  respected musician Valentin Puentes, a guitarist and teacher of traditional Cuban son and guajiro (country) music, learning bass and guitar. On tour with his father’s band in 1995, he approached a girl working at their Vancouver Island soundcheck and said “I like you” in halting English. Luckily, she spoke Spanish. Within a year, they were married.

But it wasn’t until they moved to Smithers, Goodacre’s hometown, that Puentes began to find his artistic identity, he says. He blended Cuban son and nueva trova with pop, rock and jazz to create an indefinable, captivating, sweetly reflective and melodic sound, recording two independent albums in the 2000s  that won Juno Awards, Canada’s top music prize. U.S. record labels circled, but as a Cuban national, wouldn’t touch him until he got his Canadian citizenship.

So Puentes and Goodacre went out on their own, with their own label and production studio. While he’s not a commercial star, he’s financially comfortable, widely respected, and has lived exactly the personal and artistic life he wants.

“My biggest success is to have created a music career and raised a family,” he says. “Creatively I’m a wildflower. I can’t have anyone telling me what to do.”

VIDEO: Alex Cuba, “Ciudad Hembra”

He often uses that freedom to collaborate with other artists. For 2020’s “Sublime” – on which, for the first time, he played all the instruments and produced himself – he also went back to his Cuban roots. He filmed a video in Havana of “Ciudad Hembra,” a yearning ode to the city, with Habana Abierta co-founder Ochoa. He recorded with childhood idols like legendary diva Omara Portuondo and Pablo Milanes, a pillar of Cuban nueva trova, the Latin American, socially conscious singer-songwriter tradition.

For years Puentes had longed to record “Hoy Como Ayer,” which he wrote with Miami-based songwriter Fernando Osorio, with Milanes. “It came so fast and beautifully, like thunder,” Puentes remembers. “When we finished, I started hearing Milanes.” They never met – Milanes recorded his part in Spain, and died at the age of 79 last November. But they spoke briefly via FaceTime. “Pablo said the art of being a singer-songwriter is in danger, and it’s up to your generation to keep it alive. He gave me a purpose for the rest of my life.”

For “Mendo,” stuck in pandemic lockdown with the rest of the world, he collaborated with Latin music mainstays like salsero Gilberto Santa Rosa and flamenco artist Antonio Carmona. He first approached famed Mexican singer-songwriter Lila Downs, for the quietly luminous “Mundo Nuevo.” “It was so empowering, because her answer was ‘Alex, I’m so grateful you thought of me,’ ” he says. “I thought, maybe we’re all bored at home waiting for something to do.”

“Mendo’s” most unexpected collaboration is with Cimafunk, known for his fiery stage shows. “I was always intrigued with how Cimafunk would behave in a quieter environment, aiming at deep musicianship, not necessarily to make you dance,” Puentes says. The result, “Hablando X Hablar,” features the two of them singing over jazzy, tautly syncopated bass and handclaps, with lyrics like “do what you want, no one here can criticize” that seem to challenge preconceptions.

“ ‘Mendo’ taught me not to be scared,” Puentes says. “Funny how something that seems horrible can be your biggest blessing. I don’t regret anything – it all happens for a reason.”

WHAT: Alex Cuba Trio in Global Cuba Fest 2023

WHERE: Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday March 4.

TICKETS: $40 adults, $35 students and seniors, $20 groups of 10 or more, $5 off for Miami Beach residents

INFORMATION: miamilightproject.com or fundarte.us

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