Bobby Sanabria, director The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra was established in the fall of 2000 by Bobby Sanabria and is comprised of an international student body representing both the School’s undergraduate and graduate programs. The Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra has reached international acclaim by performing to standing-room-only audiences at the 2001 International Association of Jazz Educators Conference (IAJE) as well as at numerous other venues throughout New York City. In March 2004, the ensemble was featured at New York City’s famed Birdland. The Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra is dedicated to performing the music of Afro-Cuban jazz masters and pays homage to these legends while continuing to pass on and advance the tradition to the next generation. Jazz artists who have been guest performers with the ensemble include Tom Harrell, David Sanchez, Arturo O’Farrill, and Dave Valentin, among others. In April 2004, the Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra paid homage to legendary Cuban jazz great Candido Camero, hosting him with an 83rd birthday celebration following a concert in which the great Candido joined the ensemble on the congas as a special guest artist. Bobby Sanabria—drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, Grammy-nominated recording artist, and educator—has performed with a veritable Who’s Who in the world of jazz and Latin music, as well as with his own critically acclaimed ensemble, Ascensión. His diverse recording and performing experience includes work with such legendary figures as Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Paquito D’Rivera, Charles McPherson, Mongo Santamaría, Chico O’Farrill, Henry Threadgill, and Mario Bauzá. Mr. Sanabria, the son of Puerto Rican parents, was born and raised in the “Fort Apache” section of New York City’s South Bronx. Inspired and encouraged by Maestro Tito Puente, another fellow New York–born Puerto Rican, Mr. Sanabria “got serious” and attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music from 1975 to 1979. He earned his bachelor of music degree from Berklee, became the first Puerto Rican to graduate, and was honored with their prestigious Faculty Association award for his work as an instrumentalist. Mr. Sanabria is a leader in the Afro-Cuban and jazz fields as both a drummer and percussionist and recognized as one of the most articulate scholars of la tradición. He was recently appointed chair of the Afro-Cuban Jazz Resource Team at the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE). He is a former faculty member at Berklee College of Music and is currently on the faculties of the Drummers Collective, Manhattan School of Music, and the New School in New York City, where he conducts both schools’ Afro-Cuban jazz orchestras—the only two student bands of this kind in the United States. Mr. Sanabria has been featured on numerous Grammy-nominated albums, including The Mambo Kings and other movie soundtracks, and numerous television and radio jingles. He performed and recorded with the famed Mario Bauzá and his Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, with whom he recorded three Grammy-nominated CDs, considered to be the definitive works of the Afro-Cuban big-band tradition. Mr. Sanabria was also featured with the Mario Bauzá orchestra in two PBS documentaries about Bauzá, and he appeared prominently in a PBS documentary on the life of Mongo Santamaría. He was featured in The History of the Mambo Kings & Afro-Cuban Music on the Bravo cable channel, and he is featured in the new 10-year nationwide traveling Smithsonian exhibit “Latin Jazz: La Combinación Perfecta.” Mr. Sanabria has been the recipient of many awards, including an NEA grant, various Meet the Composer awards, and the INTAR off-Broadway Composer award. Most recently, his tours have been supported by five successive years of funding from an ArtsCONNECT grant from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. In 1993 Mr. Sa   Date(s): Thu Feb 16, 2006 Event Time: 8:00 PM Location: John C. Borden Auditorium Price: FREE CONCERT; No tickets required Contact: Concert Office  917-493-4428 [Back]