Rolando Luna

Winner of the 2007 Montreux Jazz Festival Piano Competition, Luna is a true musical polyglot versed equally in classical music, traditional Cuban styles, and modern jazz whose remarkable ascendance from fledgling artist to work with Cuban vocal legend Portuondo took just three years. Among the most in-demand pianists in Cuban music, Luna has appeared on over 200 albums in the last two decades and toured internationally with major Cuban artists Issac Delgado and Pablo Milanés as well as the renowned French-Lebanese quarter-tone trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf.

His 2001 debut EP En la Luna won a Cubadisco award (the Cuban equivalent of the GRAMMYs), and he’s issued a string of accomplished releases including collaborative efforts with bass genius Gastón Joya and Spanish accordion maestro Kepa Junkera.

2023 brought a whirlwind of activity for the pianist with the January release of Mi Alma en Canciones, the solo piano session Rolando’s Faces in May, and the forthcoming live recording Trio Live in December. For this return to the Joe Henderson Lab he performs in a simmering duo with percussionist Abreu, Luna’s bandmate in the popular collective El Comité.