Saturday Afternoon Emerging Artists Performance

Continuing day two of the Vermont Jazz Center’s 9th Solo Jazz Piano Festival with our two emerging artists and our full 6-person panel Q&A. This festival aims to illustrate the wide variety of jazz piano styles and approaches by calling on the pianists themselves to convey their unique attributes while simultaneously demonstrating their direct link to the continuum of the music’s lineage.

EMERGING ARTIST BIOS

Estefania Núñez Villamandos is a Cuban-born pianist, film composer, and arranger. Her repertoire spans Cuban, Caribbean, jazz, and classical music. She has toured the USA and Spain with her band, Mestizas, performing material from their EP, El Alma de la Olvidada. As a film composer, Núñez has scored short films and documentaries. Her work has been featured at the Women in Animation Festival in NYC. As a performer, she has collaborated with Aida Cuevas, Daymé Arocena, Harold López Nussa, Miguelito Núñez, Aldo López Gavilán, Pablo Milanés, Egberto Gismonti, and Arturo O’Farrill. Núñez received a full scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music. She is now working on her Master’s at Berklee’s Global Institute Master’s program. 

Michael B. Carabello performs in a variety of styles with an emphasis on jazz and world music. As a youth, he studied at the Artists Collective under Rene McLean, later graduating from the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz. Carabello has worked with Nat Reeves, Rene McLean, Antoine Roney, and Steve Davis. His performances include stints at New York Jazz Piano Festival at Kalvierhaus, Jazz at Lincoln Center Live in Times Square, The Side Door Jazz Club, Smalls Jazz Club and The Django in NYC, The Hartford Jazz festival, NYC Winter Jazz festival, and Newport Jazz Festival. He performed at the White House for First Lady Michelle Obama, who, at that time, was chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). Carabello performs in numerous groups, including his ensemble, The Lost Tribe. Currently he is recording his first album as a leader and serving as Music Director at the Artists Collective where he is developing a curriculum giving area youth broader access to the arts of the African Diaspora.