From 5:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m., visit the dance floor on the North Lawn for free salsa dance lessons! See more above. Dance floor is open during the concert.
With a career spanning over 60 years, Cuban pianist, composer, and bandleader Chucho Valdés has cemented his legacy as one of the most influential figures in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. Hailed as “a pianist of imperial command, possessed of a dazzling, deceptively casual virtuosity” (New York Times), Valdés is a seven-time Grammy and six-time Latin Grammy winner, honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2018.
This summer, Valdés returns to Ravinia with Irakere 50, celebrating the groundbreaking small big-band he founded in 1973. Fusing Afro-Cuban ritual music, Cuban popular music, jazz, rock, and classical elements, Irakere forever transformed Latin jazz. Alongside Valdés for this milestone event are two legendary musicians in their own right and former band members—saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera and trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval.
Valdés, D’Rivera, and Sandoval have filled out their band with the next generation of top jazz musicians to come out of Cuba, including featured guest singer Emilio Frías (a.k.a. “El Niño”), the famed founder and voice of the globally renowned orchestra El Niño y la Verdad.
