David Virelles (born 1983) is a Cuban

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

pianist and composer.

Early life

Virelles was born in Cuba in 1983Jurek, Tho
"Artist Biography"
AllMusic. Retrieved 21 February 2015. and grew up in Santiago. His father is José Aquiles, a singer-songwriter; his mother was a Santiago de Cuba Symphony flautist. Virelles started classical piano studies at the age of seven and heard various forms of Cuban music during his childhood. He met Canadian musician

Jane Bunnett Mary Jane Bunnett, (born October 22, 1956) is a Canadian musician and educator. A soprano saxophonist, flautist and bandleader, she is especially known for performing Afro-Cuban jazz. She travels regularly to Cuba to perform with Cuban musicians. ...

in Cuba and she invited him to Toronto. He eventually studied at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

and

Humber College The Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, rebranded as Humber Polytechnic since 2024, is a public Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1967, Humber has three mai ...

. Virelles also recorded and toured with Bunnett, including for her 2001 album ''Alma de Santiago''. He started communicating via e-mail and telephone with

Steve Coleman Steve Coleman (born September 20, 1956) is an American saxophonist, composer, bandleader and music theorist. In 2014, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. Early life Steve Coleman was born and grew up in South Side, Chicago. He started playing ...

around 2006; the saxophonist gave him detailed responses to questions on music.

Later life and career

Canada Council for the Arts The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to foster and promote the study a ...

grant allowed Virelles to study with

Henry Threadgill Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944) is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. He came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles rooted in jazz but with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating other genres of music. He h ...

in New York. Virelles moved to New York permanently in 2009 and soon played with major jazz figures, including saxophonists Coleman, Chris Potter and Mark Turner.Ratliff, Ben (6 October 2011
"New Pilots at the Keyboard"
''The New York Times''. Virelles was part of a trio in 2010, with bassist Ben Street and drummer

Andrew Cyrille Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographer ...

, that played largely improvised music.Blumenfeld, Larry (30 January 2013
"A Man of Two Islands"
''The Wall Street Journal''. The pianist later added percussionist Román Díaz to this group. In 2011, Virelles played

prepared piano A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for ''Works for pr ...

, celeste and harmonium on Potter's album '' The Sirens''."ECM"
. ECM Records. Retrieved 21 February 2015. Virelles made his

ECM Records ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

leader debut with the 2014 release ''Mbókò''.Fordham, John (16 October 2014
"David Virelles: Mboko CD review – Jazz-Infused World Music That Goes Beyond Categories"
''The Guardian''. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' reviewer reported that "Virelles explores ancient Afro-Cuban sacred and ritual musics through imaginative fusions with contemporary materials. Mostly he does this by using the two basses as drones, mixing spacious chord-moods with bursts of startling improvisation in a flux of styles, and focusing much of the melody-playing on

he two He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

drummers."

Discography

As leader/co-leader

As sideman

References

{{Authority control 1983 births Virelles, David Cuban jazz pianists Place of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Cuban pianists Justin Time Records artists