Today we’d like to introduce you to Christian Valdés.
Hi Christian, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Cali, Colombia, in a family that’s been part of the salsa scene there for generations — my dad and my uncles all played in some of the big Colombian orchestras, groups like Grupo Niche and Guayacán. So music wasn’t really a choice for me, it was just the air I grew up breathing and all I could see myself doing. By the time I was 16 I was already out on the road, playing with major salsa artists from Colombia, Cuba, and Puerto Rico — Andy Montañez, Tito Nieves, Willie González, Rey Ruiz, a long list. At 19 I toured with Grupo Niche, which was a huge deal for me given the family history there.
It was on a performance stop in Dallas that everything shifted for me. I auditioned for the Jazz Piano program at the University of North Texas almost on a whim, and they offered me a scholarship. I moved to Texas in 2011 not really knowing anyone, and dove into jazz — a completely different language than the salsa I’d grown up playing, and one I had to learn from the ground up, studying with people like Stefan Karlsson, Michael Palma, and Sergio Pamies.
Dallas ended up being home for over a decade. I built a career there as a pianist, arranger, and bandleader — leading my own sextet, picking up nine DownBeat awards along the way, and eventually joining the jazz faculty at UT Arlington. I got to work with artists across both worlds, from Arturo Sandoval to Diego “El Cigala,” whose album I arranged and played on ended up with a Latin Grammy nomination.
A couple years ago I made the move to New York to start my Doctor of Musical Arts at NYU — the next step in pushing my playing and my composing further. But Dallas is really where I became the musician I am now. It’s where salsa and jazz stopped being two separate things for me and started talking to each other, which is still the core of everything I play today.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Honestly, no — it hasn’t been smooth, and I don’t think anyone’s story like this really is. The biggest one early on was leaving my family and coming to the U.S. on my own, and starting over musically. I came to the U.S. having already built a real career in salsa, playing with major artists in Colombia, and then I got to North Texas and had to essentially become a beginner again in jazz — and a new player in the Latin scene there too, which was its own separate world from what I knew back home.
There was also the more practical side of starting over in a new country — figuring out visas and paperwork as an international student and later as a working musician, learning the language, and building a network from zero in Texas when nobody there knew who I was yet. Salsa audiences and jazz audiences don’t always overlap, so for a while I was proving myself twice, in two scenes that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
And like most musicians, there’s the financial reality — freelancing, teaching, gigging, and touring while trying to also carve out time to practice, write, and record my own music. That balance is still something I manage every day.
What got me through it was my passion and respect for the music traditions I love. In any project I get involved in, I try to give my best and learn as much as I can. I see myself as a forever apprentice.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I think at the core, I’m a pianist, arranger, and composer moving between the jazz and Latin music worlds — not fusing them as a gimmick, but because that’s genuinely how I hear music, since I have been so involved in both.
Right now the thing I’m most excited about is my upcoming album, Impulsos. It’s a trio record, mostly original compositions, and honestly the most personal thing I’ve ever put my name on. Almost every song is written for someone in my life — There is a song for my wife, a waltz for my grandparents with a Colombian bambuco feel folded into a jazz form, a ballad for my daughter, a tune for my brother, and just originals that express the melodies and harmonies I hear in my head. The title track, “Impulsos,” is actually my very first composition, one I wrote back in 2013 and finally got to revisit and rerecord. Emotionally has been difficult too. It has been hard to believe in my music and my capabilities, but with the support of my family, friends and colleagues, I have built the courage to do it. I wrote most of it while adjusting to a new city, new fatherhood, and a heavy course load — so it’s as much a document of that chapter as it is a piece of music.
Outside of my own music, I lead Fusión Latina, a project I still travel back to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to perform and direct at different festivals and venues. It’s where I get to play more commercial Latin music but still hold it to my own musical standards — and it’s my way of putting something back into the Latin scene there, the same scene that gave me so much when I first arrived in Texas.
I’m also very proud of my work as an arranger, especially Obras Maestras, an album I recorded with the flamenco great Diego “El Cigala” — I played all the piano tracks, and my father and I did the arrangements together. That project earned a Latin Grammy nomination, which meant a lot given it was a family collaboration. I’m still actively taking on arranging and piano work for other exciting projects.
If there’s one thing that sets me apart, it’s that I don’t treat salsa and jazz as two separate resumés — my ear, my touch, and my arranging instincts all come from moving as fluently as I can between both, and that’s the sound I bring to everything I do.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I actually think about this a lot, and I’d say luck has played a real role in my life — but it’s a specific kind of luck, the kind that opens a door rather than hands you what’s on the other side of it.
I was lucky to be born in Colombia, and specifically in a household with such a rich musical and cultural upbringing. Growing up surrounded by so many different musical and cultural experiences let me see, early on, the beauty in diversity — in how many different traditions could live inside one country, one city, even one family. I had the fortune of growing up with the influence of salsa and Colombian folk music from the Pacific region, both running through my family directly.
That same family legacy is also what connected me to real opportunities early — getting in the room with major salsa artists while I was still a teenager wasn’t something I earned my way into from scratch, it came from my family’s name and connections. I’m honest about that. But I want to be just as clear about the other half of it: getting the opportunity was luck, keeping it was not. Once I was in those rooms, nobody cared whose son I was — I still had to play, still had to earn my chair in every one of those projects, and still had to prove I belonged there every single time and through every single note. Nothing after that first door was ever handed to me.
So if I had to define it, luck gave me the starting point. Everything past that has been hard work.
Contact Info:
- Website: christianvaldes.com | fusionlatinamusic.com | notedsound.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianvaldesmusic/ and https://www.instagram.com/fusionlatinamusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@christianvaldes9499
