Grammy-winning Jazz Artist Arturo O’Farrill Will Be Segerstrom Center’s First Artist in Residence

Paul Hodgins
16 hours ago
5 min read

His yearlong residency will include performances, master classes and the world premiere of a new symphony.

Arturo O'Farrill. Photo courtesy of Segerstrom Center for the Arts

The Segerstrom Center for the Arts has announced that Grammy-winning pianist, composer, bandleader and educator Arturo O’Farrill will be its first artist in residence. O’Farrill’s residency will culminate with the commissioned world premiere of a work for orchestra, “Lowrider Symphony,” to be performed with Pacific Symphony on July 9, 2027. O’Farrill’s 2026-27 Segerstrom calendar will also include performances, youth and family programming, master classes and community events.

Segerstrom Center also announced “¡Viva! The Spenuzza Series,” a season of events featuring Latino artists that encompasses music, dance, Broadway, jazz and family programming. Sponsored by the Spenuzza Family, ¡Viva! “honors 257 years of California’s Hispanic heritage while spotlighting the artists and traditions shaping its future,” the Center announced in today’s press release.

“Orange County is a fascinating place,” O’Farrill said in an interview with Culture OC. “I’ve gotten to know a bit about it already, and it has its own unique, vibrant culture and voice. It’s not Los Angeles in a way that’s beautiful.”

O’Farrill is widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential figures in contemporary Latin jazz, and he is a longtime advocate for the preservation and evolution of Afro-Cuban music. O’Farrill has won eight Grammy Awards and two Latin Grammy Awards, cementing his status as a major force in the global jazz scene. He is a recording artist with Blue Note Records, the most prestigious recording label in the jazz world.

O’Farrill’s yearlong residency, which will involve several lengthy visits that will pull him away from his New York home, isn’t his first extended stay in California.

“I was a part of the faculty at UCLA for five years and I love Southern California,” O’Farrill said. “I secretly wish I could end up here. Also, I think it’s incredibly adventurous and intelligent for institutions to make an investment into individual artists’ voices. This is a big, impressive institution. To say, ‘We believe in being artist-led’ is a huge risk for them. I really think of it as an opportunity to get to know the people of Orange County and to serve them. That message the institution is sending in picking me as the inaugural artist in residence is that they want a voice to speak to the community in a meaningful way. I'm committed to spending as much time here as possible.”

O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra held a residency at Manhattan’s famous Birdland Jazz Club for over 25 years. Though best known for Afro-Cuban jazz, his work encompasses free jazz, experimental hip-hop, and collaborations with prestigious dance companies like Alvin Ailey and Ballet Hispánico. Symphonies and even opera are part of his growing sphere of interest. He’s looking forward to collaborating with Pacific Symphony on a work that examines a scene that has long fascinated him. He pointed out that lowrider culture has admirers in many different parts of the world.

“You know, there are even Japanese people who dress like lowriders and are obsessed with those cars; they’re very into it. I’m deeply moved by Chicano culture. One of the things about the lowrider world is that it’s so stylized. It doesn’t derive from anything. It’s almost its own standalone art form – the clothing, the culture, the fierce pride. I want to capture that sound.”

Celebrated for his work as a cultural ambassador, O’Farrill employs jazz as a tool for international dialogue. He recorded “Cuba: The Conversation Continues” in Havana just 48 hours after President Barack Obama announced plans to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations in 2015. His project “Fandango at the Wall” brought musicians together to perform on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, focusing on themes of migration and community. Through his nonprofit organization, Belongó, O’Farrill provides education and music instruction to students in New York, and he is developing Timbale Terrace, a community and performing arts center in East Harlem.

“I love my students. Nothing makes me happier than having a student challenge me and ask me, ‘Why do you think that?’ My entire trajectory, administratively, artistically, would not have taken place without an adjunct college professor who challenged everything I believed in. He said, ‘Why do you want to be a musician? What’s the end game?’ He really got me thinking about everything – about class and gender studies, about racism. Forever and a day I’ll be trying to pay back that debt. He showed me how to connect my creative practice to my social and political beliefs. That’s a very important part of my life. The big arcs, the big triumphs of my life have been commercial and artistic successes, but more than that, they’ve been bold statements.”

O’Farrill is the son of composer and bandleader Chico O’Farrill, one of the pioneers of Afro-Cuban jazz and the founder of the Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra. Formed in the 1990s, the group became famous for its Sunday night residency at Birdland. Arturo played piano in the band and eventually took over as the conductor and manager as his father’s health declined.

When Chico passed away in 2001, Arturo continued to lead his father's orchestra. In 2002, legendary jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who serves as managing and artistic director of jazz at Lincoln Center, approached Arturo with the idea of creating a resident Latin jazz orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center, modeled after the celebrated Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Arturo used his father’s band as the foundational DNA for the new group. While the Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra was focused almost exclusively on Chico’s compositions, Arturo’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra was designed to be broader in scope, performing works by various Latin jazz masters as well as new commissioned scores.

“It’s very hard to be the son of a famous father,” O’Farrill said. “It took me a long time to get past the fear of being compared to him favorably or unfavorably. But it really had to happen. I have my own voice as a composer. And my commitment to that voice doesn’t come from nostalgia. It doesn’t come from venerating my father’s legacy. It comes from really respecting his vision. He took great chances every time he composed. He wrote music that nobody had written before. He gambled with his career. I find that compelling. I’m a huge admirer of his work. He’s a master composer, a master orchestrator. I’m carrying on that spirit in my work.”