Gonzalo Rubalcaba at the Vermont Jazz Center

Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio

Saturday, September 19, 2026
7:30-10 pm

Pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba was already a young phenom with a budding career in his native Cuba when he was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie in 1985.

Since then, Piano & Keyboard Magazine selected him in 1999 as one of the great pianists of the 20th century, alongside figures such as Glenn Gould & Bill Evans.

To date, Rubalcaba has won five Grammy Awards (for a total of 21 Grammy & Latin Grammy nominations) & four Latin Grammys.

Rubalcaba was born in 1963 in a musical family in Havana. Gonzalo, a child prodigy who by the age of 6 was playing drums in his father’s orchestra, started his formal training two years later, with piano as his main instrument.

He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana, & by his mid–teens he was working steadily in Havana.

Following graduation he stepped right into the life of the popular musician, touring Cuba, Europe, Africa & Asia with the fabled Orquesta Aragón & also as a sideman in jazz groups & , beginning in 1984, leading his own Afro-Cuban jazz rock fusion band, Grupo Proyecto.

Encounters with Dizzy Gillespie & , in 1986, with Charlie Haden & then Blue Note Records president, Bruce Lundvall, set the stage for him to perform & record in the United States & Europe.

Rubalcaba moved to the Dominican Republic in 1991 & settled in Miami in 1996

Gonzalo Rubalcaba, piano
Matt Brewer, bass
Eric Harland, drums

$25+ general admission (sliding scale)
Donations for livestream welcome.

For accessibility support please call in advance.

802 254 9088 ext. 1
eugene@vtjazz.org
www.vtjazz.org

Vermont Jazz Center
72 Cotton Mill Hill #222
Brattleboro, VT 05301