HADCO EXPERIENCES launches Event Experiences with A Creole Christmas Gift at NAPA.
A Creole Christmas Gift: Concert and Cocktails, featuring 7-time Grammy award winning Jazz pianist Chucho Valdés and Guggenheim Fellow Etienne Charles, is a once in a lifetime event that signals HADCO Experiences’ expansion from authentically Trinbagonian ecotourism experiences into the premium event experiences space with a decidedly Caribbean flavour. Set for Saturday December 16, 2023 at the Lord Kitchener Auditorium of the National Academy for the Performing Arts, this event will showcase Caribbean music legend Valdés in the Royal Quartet and globe-trotting Trinidadian musician Charles and his Creole Soul band in a celebration showing appreciation through music, food and festivity with a focus on how we in the wider Caribbean celebrate the Christmas season.
Cuban pianist, composer, and arranger Chucho Valdés is the most influential figure in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. In a career spanning more than 60 years, both as a solo artist and bandleader, Mr. Valdés has distilled elements of the Afro-Cuban music tradition, jazz, classical music, rock, and more, into a deeply personal style that was initially presented in his landmark ensemble Irakere, and in his parallel and subsequent careers as a solo performer and a small-group leader. With over two dozen albums, his music places him at the forefront of the Caribbean aesthetic that signifies excellence; seven Grammy and five Latin Grammy awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Science last year, and induction into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame are among his many accolades. He will be performing at A Creole Christmas Gift with his Royal Quartet featuring the sublime musicianship of bassist José Armando Gola, percussionist Roberto Junior Vizcaíno Torre and drummer Horatio ‘El Negro’ Hernández.
Etienne Charles, returns to his Creole Christmas mode, so perfectly captured in his 2015 album of the same name and in concerts here in 2015 and 2019, for a wider engagement of holiday music from the perspective of that fortunate traveller, that creole soul. Charles re-imagines, from his Caribbean perspective, the music celebrating the Christmas season with classics from the Caribbean, American and European holiday songbooks with his stellar ensemble featuring jazz and folk musicians from around the globe. This concert will feature Venezuelan cuatro master Jorge Glem, alongside Trinidadian favourites, Vaughnette Bigford, David ‘Happy’ Williams, Robbie Greenidge, Clarita Rivas, Pasqual Landeau, and Charles’ all-star Creole Soul jazz band. The creole rhythms from New Orleans down to the Caribbean coast of Venezuela are mined for inspiration to celebrate the reflection and return of the native gaze to local audiences in need of an antidote to artificial snow.
A Creole Christmas Gift: Concert and Cocktails is more than a jazz concert. It is a creole holiday celebration that is a must-attend celebration of us in the Caribbean. The music connects us as only we can. Original and traditional: Venezuelan parang, parranda, Christmas kaisos, Afro-Cuban jazz that say, “may the Orixá dance in your house and bless your family. Axé!” A post-concert “cocktails and jorts”, mix and mingle, adds the celebratory conclusion to this event that marks a series of firsts, and expands the local audience that is both attuned to our local traditions and willing to discover the new.
The launch of A Creole Christmas Gift: Concert and Cocktails marks an exciting new chapter for HADCO Experiences as we enter the arena of premium events within the Tourism industry.
For further information about A Creole Christmas Gift: Concert and Cocktails, please click here.
