Yilian Cañizares Trio

Cuban violinist and vocalist Yilian Cañizares is on the cusp of becoming a major figure on the North American jazz scene. Introduced to Bay Area audiences through her collaboration with piano great Omar Sosa — with whom she recorded the gorgeous, spiritually charged 2018 album Aguas — the Swiss-based Cañizares has been eager to return ever since. Born in Havana, she moved at 14 to Venezuela to study at El Sistema founder José Antonio Abreu’s Academia Latinoamericana de Violín in Caracas, and three years later relocated to Switzerland to continue her conservatory training in Fribourg and Lausanne.

Increasingly drawn to blending her Cuban roots with jazz, she launched her first band, Ochumare, named for “rainbow” in Yoruba, which became a proving ground for her rapidly evolving music. That early venture laid a foundation for collaborations with Cuban piano stars such as Chucho Valdés, Omar Sosa, and Roberto Fonseca. But Cañizares’s musical reach extends far beyond her homeland, encompassing work with Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, Romani flamenco legend Diego El Cigala, South Korean vocalist Youn Sun Nah, Tunisian oud master and vocalist Dhafer Youssef, and Cameroonian bass master Richard Bona.

Personnel:

• Yilian Cañizares, violin & vocals
• Additional personnel TBA