*******Doors open at 7pm. Concert starts at 8:00pm. There will be a short artist interview prior to the live performance. Bar area will be open on the outdoor patio. Two drinks included with VIP ticket purchase. This will be a very special evening at the Just Jazz Live Concert Series.

More than a long-awaited new album, Claudia Acuña’s Turning Pages is an exquisite reintroduction to a singer who has thrived at the cusp of jazz and Latin American music. The project captures an artist in the process of reinventing herself, with a program of strikingly melodic original songs expressing her singular vision. Featuring a stellar cast of collaborators, Acuña’s first new recording in a decade makes a compelling case that while keeping a lower profile she’s been pluming new emotional depths.

“In the past I’d include one or two original songs on a record,” she says. “With Turning Pages I decided to focus on my songs, which can feel like I’m opening my diary and telling my story. This felt like the right time to introduce myself as a composer, and introduce me.”

Born July 3, 1971 in Santiago and raised in Concepcion, Acuña established herself on the Chilean jazz scene in her early 20s. When she arrived in New York City in 1995, Acuña quickly gained recognition as a leading voice on a scene rapidly being transformed by a wave of brilliant Latin American musicians. Part of the roiling scene centered on Small’s, she plunged into collaborations with masters such as Jason Lindner, Harry Whitaker, Arturo O'Farrill, Guillermo Klein, and bassist Avishai Cohen, who co-produced her critically hailed 2000 debut Wind From the South (Verve).

Her five albums as a leader established Acuña as a creative force, from 2002’s Rhythm of Life (Verve) and 2004’s Luna (MaxJazz) though 2008’s In These Shoes (Zoho Music) and 2009’s strikingly beautiful En Este Momento (Marsalis Music). Whether putting her stamp on popular Latin American ballads, reimagining jazz standards from a South American perspective, or bringing infusing Afro-Caribbean material with a wide rhythmic sensibility, Acuña stands out as a passionate and emotionally incisive singer with a gleaming, burnished bronze tone.

For much of the past decade she’s put her recording career on the backburner to focus on raising her son. Instead of touring, she’s stayed closer to home, where her keen intelligence and intrepid spirit has made her the vocalist of choice for many of jazz’s most creative figures. Rather than stagnating she’s thrived by pursuing multiple musical directions with artists such as Susie Ibarra, Billy Childs, Henry Threadgill, the Rodriguez Brothers, and Elio Villa-Franca.

Acuña brings all of her far-flung experiences to bear on Turning Pages, an album that documents a major creative leap. Her key collaborator was Colombian-born string wizard Juancho Herrera, who produced the album, co-wrote several songs, and had a major hand in most of the arrangements. As much as Turning Pages points toward the future, the album is also an act of reclamation and recovery, as Acuña takes stock of her past via songs new and old. It’s the work of a woman reborn from the ashes, stronger, wiser, and more expressive than ever. Ready once again to take on the world, she’s eager to reconnect with long-time fans and build new audience alliances.

Producer, pianist and composer Pablo Vergara is a Latin Grammy-nominated musician who has performed across four continents. A classically-trained pianist in his native Chile, Pablo moved to New York to study with some of his jazz heroes like Barry Harris, Ron Carter and Bruce Barth. Since then he has worked with artists like saxophone legend Gato Barbieri, Dave Valentin, Claudia Acuña, Husnu Senlendirici, Fred Wesley, Ibrahim Maalouf, Edmar Castañeda, Alain Pérez, Bebel Gilberto, Mino Cinelu, Keith Carlock and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

Vergara composed and produced the score for Alejandro Fernandez Almendras's ¨To Kill A Man¨, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival and Dutch Circle of Film Critics Award at Rotterdam Film Festival. The successful collaboration has sparked Vergara’s interest in writing music for film. He recently composed and produced the original soundtrack for Fernandez Almendras last two movies: Chilean box-office hit "My Amigo Alexis" -currently on Netflix- and the Czech black and white drama "The Play".

Mr. Vergara studied at the Julliard School and at City College of New York and holds an MA in Music. He studied orchestration with Daniel Ott, counterpoint with Jonathan Pieslak and conducting with Vincent La Selva.

Performance credits include Newport Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, Istanbul Is Sanat, Paris' Le Zenith, New York's Central Park SummerStage and Australia's Sidney Festival, amongst many others.

Pablo lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, with his wife Anath and his son Camilo.