Elio Villafranca: Florentina

Elio Villafranca’s *Florentina* comes to Jazz at Lincoln Center as a large-scale jazz narrative, shaped by Afro-Cuban rhythm and big-band writing. Set in a live concert context, it sits alongside a season that also features artists such as Wycliffe Gordon, Chucho Valdés, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, placing the piece in conversation with multiple jazz lineages. Public records do not clearly establish an NYC premiere history for *Florentina*, but its subject matters in New York: migration, memory, and the way Latin Caribbean histories are carried into American stages. Villafranca’s approach favors structure and detail over virtuosity for its own sake.