This year, the stage of the festival, which will be held for the 34th time, will be decorated by Lithuanian and foreign music virtuosos who have joined forces – Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra. The concert, which will crown the year of “Kaunas Jazz”, will take place on December 4 at the “Žalgiris” arena in Kaunas.

Alfredo Rodriguez, who was born in Cuba and lives in the USA, is already well known to the audience of “Kaunas Jazz”. In the summer of 2021, he held concerts with the famous bassist and vocalist Richard Bona in Palanga and Trakai, and in 2022 he held a solo concert accompanied by ovation at the National Drama Theater of Kaunas.

This prestigious Grammy Award-nominated musician has been mesmerizing jazz professionals with his virtuoso playing style for nearly two decades.

At just 18, Alfredo was already mentioned in critics’ polls as one of the most promising jazz talents. Famous producer Quincy Jones, who became his teacher and advisor, helped him to sail to wider waters.

The musician, who has been compared to legendary pianists Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk, has released several albums that sound a fusion of jazz and other genres colored by Latin American rhythms.

“He is definitely one of the best young pianists I have seen. Incredible talent, his potential is limitless,” says Quincy Jones, who has worked with Michael Jackson and countless other world’s greatest talents.

In 2015, Alfredo was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement for the recording “Guantanamera”.

Jazz, salsa, bachata, rumba – this musician takes the stage with an energy that fuses southern heat and western delicacy. This is especially well reflected in his latest album, Coral Way, released last year, which also featured Cuban music sensation, Grammy-nominated artist Cimafunk.

The last album, by the way, symbolically sums up the joyful but also difficult phase of Alfredo Rodriguez’s life in recent years, during which he met the Kaunas Jazz audience for the first time.

It is also worth adding that Alfredo Rodriguez is called a person who knows not only how to play the piano virtuosoly, but also how to tell stories. And to do it very personally – every concertgoer leaves feeling like his friend.

The orchestra, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary this fall, is led by Algimantas Treikauskas and is an important phenomenon of the cultural life of Kaunas and Lithuania. During the previous seasons, the orchestra implemented successful exclusive global publishing projects and had the honor of performing with the world’s best opera soloists.

The orchestra has also performed several times with prominent world rock and pop music artists such as the Scorpions, Bonnie Tyler, Chris Norman and others.

You can find all the festival news on the website www.kaunasjazz.lt