Grammy-winning Latin jazz pianist and composer Zaccai Curtis takes the Thomas S. Gates Community Center stage for a performance that he describes as “music meant to move you forward and help carry you wherever you need to go.”

Curtis is an acclaimed recording artist and producer, recently honored with the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album for Cubop Lives!. He leads his own groups, the Zaccai Curtis Quintet and Sonido Solar, and released his new album Sonoluminescence Vol. 1 in 2026.
Together with his brother Luques, Curtis co-founded the record label TRRcollective, a collaborative space for musicians to produce and release their own music. He also produced the Grammy-nominated album Entre Colegas by Andy González (2016).
A Connecticut native, Curtis moved to New York City in 2005, where he has performed with renowned artists including Christian Scott, Donald Harrison, Cindy Blackman Santana, Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch, The Mambo Legends, and Avery Sharpe. Curtis is a Yamaha artist.
In addition to his performance career, Curtis is a respected educator, teaching at the University of Hartford’s Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division and Western Connecticut State University. He is also an author, having written two instructional books: Art of the Guajeo and Theory of the Common Voicing, which support students in their jazz and Latin Jazz studies.
A three-time ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award winner, Curtis is a prolific composer and arranger for his own groups, as well as artists like Little Johnny Rivero, Steve Kroon, and Sonido Solar. His quartet was chosen by the US State Department for the American Music Abroad (Jazz Ambassadors) program twice, touring South Asia in 2006. In 2007, he received the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism’s Artist Fellowship for original composition. In 2017, he was awarded the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant, and in 2020, he was named Rising Star in the DownBeat Critics Poll.

This event is open to the MDI community. Donations welcome.