Cesar Orozco Clinic: Rhythmic and Harmonic Pattern in Latin Jazz

Cesar Orozco was born in Cuba in 1980. He began his musical studies at age 7 and graduated from the National School of Art (ENA) in Havana, Cuba, in 1998 with specialization in violin and music ensemble conducting. Soon after, he moved to Venezuela, by invitation of the Carabobo Symphony Orchestra, where he held the position of violinist for five years. 

Orozco has been working in Venezuela also as a pianist and arranger, collaborating in more than 40 recordings with national and international artists, such as Biella da Costa, Soledad Bravo, the Super Band Guaco, Andrés Briceño Band, Pablo Gil, Aquiles Baez, Pibo Márquez, Maria Teresa Chacín, Ilan Chester, Orlando Poleo, Cecilia Todd, Jorge Glem, Euro Zambrano, Diego "El Negro" Alvarez, and Huascar Barradas, among others. He has also shared the stage with such artists as Oscar de Leon, Eric Clapton, Caribbean Jazz Project, David Sanborn, and Chucho Valdés.

Currently, Cesar Orozco is the music director, pianist, arranger, and composer of the show Venezuela Viva, and award winner at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, considered the greatest arts festivals in the world. Venezuela Viva earned five stars from specialized reviewers throughout the United Kingdom. Orozco is an exclusive Yamaha artist in Venezuela.

In this clinic, Orozco will cover Venezuelan joropo and merengue and their applications to modern jazz and how to blend Cuban and Venezuelan genres in the same Latin jazz piece, achieving a coherent mix of all elements.