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MoCA\CT Presents: Etienne Charles
Join Trinidad-born trumpeter Etienne Charles at MoCA\CT as he leads a fearless quartet blending straight-ahead jazz with island rhythms, cinematic textures, and socially conscious themes. This performance offers a rare opportunity to experience one of today’s most compelling jazz voices in an intimate, immersive setting.
About Charles Etienne
Trinidad-born Etienne Charles is a performer, composer and storyteller who is constantly searching for untold tales and sounds with which to tell them. His lush trumpet sound, varied compositional textures and pulsating percussive grooves enable him to invoke trance, soothing and exciting listeners while referencing touchy and sometimes controversial subjects in his music.
Highlighting marginalized communities and engaging with them has been his mission, evident with projects such as his Guggenheim Fellowship Project, Carnival: The Sound of a People Vol. 1, San Jose Suite, Creole Soul, Gullah Roots, Folklore and his latest commission, San Juan Hill – A New York Story. His concerts engage, enlighten, educate, and enrich audiences with energized multidisciplinary performance utilizing original composition, thematic improvisation, dance, short films and spoken word to create a holistic experience. A firm believer in music and performance as a tool for provoking thought and dialogue, Charles’s themes speak to the status quo while drawing parallels to history.
As an Afro-descendant, his work is actively connecting the diaspora and drawing lines to the regions at the roots of migrations, evident in his latest release, Creole Orchestra which spent 7 weeks at #1 on the JazzWeek chart this summer. His dedication to music as a tool for social uplift has seen him awarded by France with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal (2024) as well as a Congressional Citation from the United States (2012).
As a sideman he has performed with and/or arranged for Roberta Flack, Chucho Valdes, Marcus Roberts, Marcus Miller, Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Foster’s Loud Minority Big Band, Monty Alexander, Gregory Porter, Terri Lyne Carrington, René Marie, Paulette McWilliams and many others. He has been commissioned as a composer and arranger by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (2025), Lincoln Center for the New York Philharmonic (2021), Savannah Music Festival (2017), Chamber Music America (2015 & 2021), the Charleston Jazz Orchestra (2012) and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble (2011).
He currently serves as Professor of Studio Music and Jazz at University of Miami Frost School of Music.
