SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director
Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: SUBA Trio
Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: SUBA Trio
Sun, March 8, 2026
|Miner Auditorium
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Closing Omar Sosa’s week as Resident Artistic Director reunites the pianist and composer with Senegalese kora maestro Seckou Keita. First meeting in 2012, the two artists immediately felt a kindred connection, and their co-led 2017 debut album, Transparent Water, was a primarily improvised release heralded as “beautiful, rhapsodic... spiritual” by Songlines. Joined here by Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Orvalles, Sosa and Keita bring their remarkable chemistry to the Miner stage with material from their 2021 album SUBA — a hymn to hope, to a new dawn of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world.
ABOUT OMAR SOSA
A world traveler who carries the verdant sounds and traditions of his native Cuba wherever he goes, seven-time GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY nominee Omar Sosa has forged powerful creative alliances around the globe. Born in Camagüey, Cuba and now a resident of Mallorca, Spain, the renowned jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader is celebrated for blending Afro-Cuban, Latin jazz, and global influences.
Sosa’s adventurous style has invigorated the Latin jazz scene worldwide, and he has released a succession of touchstone albums in settings ranging from solo piano to big band, and in collaboration with master musicians including Paolo Fresu, Adam Rudolph, Seckou Keita, former SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director John Santos, and the NDR Big Band. His week as an SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director gives an enlightening glimpse into his diverse range of musical pursuits.
RESIDENT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OMAR SOSA
Thu, Mar 5 • 7:30PM Omar Sosa & Stanford Jazz Orchestra: Music from the Album Es:Sensual
Fri, Mar 6 • 4:30PM Open Soundcheck w/ Omar Sosa
Fri Mar 6 • 7:30PM Omar Sosa & Yilian Cañizares: Aguas Trio
Sat, Mar 7 • 7:30PM Omar Sosa Quarteto Americanos
Sun, Mar 8 • 7PM Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: Suba Trio
Personnel
Omar Sosa piano
Seckou Keita kora, vocals
Gustavo Ovalles percussion
"Sosa's music is the unifying sort, yoking together Africa and jazz and Latin America and hip-hop. He makes it work, being one of those rare birds whose keyboard skills are near those of Chick Corea or Chucho Valdés."
The New York Times
Allah Léno
Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita
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Gniri Balma
Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita
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Playlist: The Electric Side of Cuba
A high‑voltage journey with Cuba’s boldest innovators, spotlighting artists like Irakere, Cimafunk, Brenda Navarrete, Omar Sosa, Elipsis, and more as they fuse ancestral rhythms with electronic, genre‑bending sound.