Grammy-award winning recording artist, band leader, pianist, and educator Arturo O'Farrill and his 17-piece Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra are set to bring the house down when they make their Bermuda Festival debut at the Ruth Seaton James Centre for the Performing Arts this evening.

Mexican-born Mr. O'Farrill is regarded as one of the world's greatest musicians.

He is the son the legendary leader of the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, composer, arranger, and trumpeter Arturo (Chico) O'Farrill (1921-2001), and grew up in New York City, where he studied at prestigious schools and music colleges, played piano with the Carla Bley Big Band, and then went on to develop his talent as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Bowie and Wynton Marsalis.

Mr. O'Farrill grew up musically in the post-Coltrane period; consequently, his playing and writing have a different edge from that of his father, and he cites Jimi Hendrix, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Carla Bley among his many influences.

In 1995, he agreed to direct the big band which has preserved much of his father's music.

Mr. O'Farrill, who is also a professor of Jazz at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, created the Afro-Cuban Latin Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis under the auspices of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

In addition to his recordings as a band leader, many of which have won awards and Grammys, Mr. O'Farrill has also appeared on numerous other recordings, among them the soundtrack of the critically acclaimed movie 'Calle 54'.

Late last year, he was commissioned to mark the occasion of US Supreme Court judge Sonia Sotomayor's appointment. Although he does not share her Puerto Rican heritage, his selection for this commission made sense: the band leader acknowledged the African influence exists in both strands of music, partially as a result of the slave trade in Havana and New Orleans. Mr. O'Farrill holds that Latin jazz is not a subset of jazz, but a sibling.

Curtain time is 8 p.m.

For ticket information see websites www.bermudafestival.org or www.bdatix.bm Alternatively, telephone 232-2255, or visit BDATIX ticket centres at: the iStore, 46 Reid Street, Hamilton (open 9 am to 5 pm), and Fabulous Fashions, Heron Bay Plaza, Southampton (open 10 am to 5 pm.).