About Me
Pianist and composer Elio Villafranca’s musical excellence was first widely recognized in 2003 by Jazz Times Magazine who selected his debut album Incantations/ Encantaciones (Universal/Pimienta) as one of the top 50 best jazz albums of the year. More recently, Wynton Marsalis featured Mr. Villafranca, in a performance at the Allen Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. The Elio Villafranca Quartet has featured an array of accomplished musicians including Pat Martino, Jane Bunnett, Terell Stafford, Eric Alexander, Casey Benjamin, and John Santos among others. The Elio Villafranca Quartet has toured nationally and internationally, performing at Jazz a Beaune Festival in France and the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City.
Villafranca has also gained the recognition of Latin and jazz music elite as a sideman: He has collaborated with Jon Faddis, Sonny Fortune, Dave Valentin, Lenny White, Horacio "El Negro" Hernández, Ralph Peterson, Giovanni Hidalgo, Eddie Henderson, Miguel Zenon, Candido Camero, and Johnny Pacheco among others. Mr. Villafranca has also toured Europe with Grammy Nominated Blue Note recording artists Jane Bunnett as part of The Spirit of Havana, and also as part of Pat Martino’s Quintet, with whom he performed at various world-renowned venues including the Blue Note Jazz Festival in Ghent, Belgium, the Blue Note Jazz Club in Milan, Italy, the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, and the North Sea Jazz Festival at The Hague, Holland.
Elio Villafranca was born in the Pinar del Rio province of Western Cuba and classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. Since his arrival in the U.S., Villafranca has been involved in East and West coast jazz and Latin jazz scenes. His music, inspired by jazz and Afro Cuban music, creates a unique cultural and musical fusion, with spirited, groundbreaking innovations. Mr. Villafranca has composed and arranged original music soundtracks for PBS documentaries and a variety of independent films, and is resident professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Villafranca currently resides in New York City and is represented by Gail Boyd Artist Management.
