Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdés will open Cornell University's 2026-27 Dallas Morse Coors Concert Series with an 85th-birthday performance in Ithaca on Friday, Oct. 23. Saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Etienne Charles will join him onstage.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Bailey Hall, 230 Garden Ave., according to Cornell's event announcement. The concert-series listing has ticket information and lists an expected end time of 9 p.m.
Valdés is a pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader known for Afro-Cuban jazz. The National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master in 2025. Cornell says his career spans six decades and includes multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy awards, a Latin Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Lovano, a Grammy-winning saxophonist, composer and producer, has also received recognition from jazz publications and the Jazz Journalists Association. Charles, a Trinidad-born trumpeter and composer, draws on Caribbean rhythms and history in work that also incorporates storytelling, dance and film, according to Cornell.
The performance starts a season for a concert series that has brought musicians to Cornell since 1903. Formerly known as the Cornell Concert Series, it was renamed after a 2025 gift from the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts. Its programming has broadened beyond its early emphasis on Western classical music.
Single tickets, subscriptions and student memberships are available through the concert-series website. The series also provides parking guidance for visitors: evening parking is available in the Hoy Road and Forest Home garages and some campus lots, subject to posted restrictions.
There is no parking directly in front of Bailey Hall. Visitors should check the series' directions before arriving, particularly if they need an accessible route or reserved parking.
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