Mariachi Herencia de México is a leading voice of a new generation of mariachi, blending deep-rooted tradition with vibrant, contemporary energy. Founded in Chicago, the two-time Latin GRAMMY®-nominated ensemble has earned acclaim for its virtuosic musicianship and electrifying performances across North America. Comprised of a dynamic group of 15 musicians, they honour the rich heritage of Mexican music while pushing the genre forward with fresh influences. With powerful vocals, rich instrumentation, and an undeniable stage presence, Mariachi Herencia de México delivers an exhilarating tribute to culture, legacy, and the evolving future of mariachi music. 

WHEN: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2026, AT 8:00 PM
WHERE: FLATO MARKHAM THEATRE
ADDRESS: 171 TOWN CENTRE BLVD – MARKHAM, ON
PRIME TICKETS: $20.00 – $93.00
REGULAR TICKETS: $20.00 – $83.00

SPECIAL PROMOTION: 15% OFF

“A band that has come to typify all that is both tender and grand about mariachi music.” – World Music Report

“Mariachi Herencia de México takes mariachi music to whole new heights.” – The Chicago Sun-Times

September 25–27 at the National Arts Centre: three days of concerts, discovery and connection.

The countdown is on. From September 25 to 27, the Ottawa Latin Jazz Conference returns to the National Arts Centre for its third edition, bringing artists and audiences together for a weekend celebrating rhythm, improvisation and the musical cultures that enrich Canada’s jazz scene.

Presented by Latin Hub Canada, the conference offers three evenings of live performances alongside free opportunities to learn, exchange ideas and connect. For longtime Latin jazz listeners, curious newcomers, students and musicians, it is an invitation to experience the music up close—and to support the people helping it flourish.

At LatinJazzNet, we have introduced the artists and explored the community behind this gathering. Now comes the most important part: being there. Make your plans, invite a friend and reserve your concert tickets through the National Arts Centre.

Three Evenings, Many Reasons to Listen

Friday, September 25, opens at 8 p.m. at the NAC’s Fourth Stage with Rachelle Behrens, Anh Phung & Civil Lizard, and the Orlando Cardoso Trio.

Ottawa vocalist Behrens brings a musical sensibility shaped by Latin music, jazz and soul. Flutist and multi-instrumentalist Anh Phung joins guitarist Sam Gleason, bassist Alan Mackie and drummer Steven Foster in Civil Lizard, a group whose shared musical conversation moves through jazz, rock and traditional influences, leaving room for the unexpected.

Cuban-Canadian pianist Orlando Cardoso makes his Ottawa debut with a trio featuring bassist Yoser Rodriguez and drummer Mark Kelso. Together, these opening-night artists offer a compelling invitation to hear familiar traditions from different perspectives.

Buy Friday concert tickets on the National Arts Centre website

Saturday, September 26, continues at 8 p.m. at the Fourth Stage with Oná Ensemble, João Lenhari and Adis Rodríguez. The evening brings together artists from Toronto and Montreal, extending the conference’s celebration of the communities and creative voices contributing to Canada’s musical life. Come ready to discover an artist, hear a new musical idea and follow the conversation wherever it leads.

Buy Saturday concert tickets on the National Arts Centre website

Sunday, September 27, brings the closing concerts to the Fourth Stage at 6 p.m., featuring the Joy Lapps Project and Hilario Durán with Jorge Luis “Papiosco” Torres.

Steelpan artist and composer Joy Lapps places community and creative expression at the heart of her work. Her presence adds another distinct Caribbean voice to the weekend. Durán and Papiosco’s collaboration, Yoruba & Jazz, explores the meeting of Afro-Cuban roots and contemporary jazz, bringing piano and percussion into a dialogue grounded in cultural memory and improvisation.

It is a closing program that gives listeners every reason to stay through Sunday.

Buy Sunday concert tickets on the National Arts Centre website

Go Beyond the Concerts

Make time for Saturday afternoon, too. The conference’s free programming at the NAC’s Peter A. Herrndorf Place invites audiences to engage with the ideas, traditions and relationships behind the performances.

At 1 p.m., the panel “Bringing Latin Jazz into Canadian Music Education” brings together Hilario Durán of Humber College, Allyson Rogers of Carleton University and João Lenhari of Université de Montréal.

A networking session is listed at 2 p.m., while an Afro-Cuban jazz workshop led by Durán and Papiosco runs from 2 to 3:30 p.m. These activities offer further reasons for students, educators, working musicians and interested listeners to take part.

Attend with a question. Listen to a different perspective. Make a connection that carries beyond the weekend.

Be Part of the Audience That Makes It Happen

Live music depends on the meeting between artists and listeners. Buying a ticket and taking a seat is a direct way to support these performers and the continued growth of a gathering dedicated to Latin jazz in Canada.

Whether you choose one concert or make a weekend of it, bring your curiosity—and bring someone who would enjoy discovering this music with you. There is room here for devoted fans and first-time listeners alike.

September 25–27. The National Arts Centre. Three days to listen, learn and celebrate together.

Choose your concerts and buy your tickets through the National Arts Centre links above. Join us at the Ottawa Latin Jazz Conference 2026.

When the Ottawa Latin Jazz Conference returns to the National Arts Centre from September 25–27, 2026, its third edition will place Canada’s multicultural music community at the center of the conversation.

Presented by Latin Hub Canada, this year’s conference celebrates the creative strength of Canada’s diaspora and the ways artists from different backgrounds are reshaping the intersections between jazz, Latin American music, Caribbean traditions, Brazilian music and contemporary improvisation. Along with three days of concerts, the program includes a panel on Latin jazz education and an Afro-Cuban jazz workshop.

Rachelle Behrens: An Ottawa Voice Rooted in the Americas

Opening-night artist Rachelle Behrens gives the conference an important connection to Ottawa. The Chilean-descended Canadian vocalist has been part of the city’s musical community for more than three decades, developing a style shaped by Latin music, jazz and soul.

Her multilingual repertoire draws from across the Americas, while collaboration with Ottawa-area musicians has given her performances a strong sense of place. Behrens represents one of the conference’s central ideas: multicultural music in Canada grows locally as artists combine heritage, experience and new surroundings.

Anh Phung & Civil Lizard: Music Without Borders

Flutist and multi-instrumentalist Anh Phung brings another kind of musical openness. With Civil Lizard, she joins guitarist Sam Gleason, bassist Alan Mackie and drummer Steven Foster in a quartet built on the chemistry of longtime collaborators.

Their music moves freely among jazz, rock, traditional music and improvisation, leaving room for each performance to evolve onstage. In a conference devoted to cultural exchange, Civil Lizard offers a reminder that crossing musical boundaries can be as meaningful as defining them.

Orlando Cardoso Trio: Cuban Tradition in Motion

Born in Matanzas, Cuba, pianist and composer Orlando Cardoso brings decades of Cuban musical experience to the conference. His career has included years as a pianist with Juan de Marcos González and the Afro-Cuban All Stars, alongside collaborations with Andy Montañez, José Alberto “El Canario,” Roberto Roena, David Sánchez and Giovanni Hidalgo.

As a bandleader, Cardoso has released Personal Touch and his latest album, Passing By, issued in October 2025. The nine-track recording further develops his voice as a pianist and composer and features renowned Cuban drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernández.

For his Ottawa debut, Cardoso appears with Mark Kelso on drums and Yoser Rodriguez on bass, forming a trio ideally suited to the dialogue between Cuban rhythmic traditions and jazz improvisation.

João Lenhari: Brazilian Jazz, Education and Montréal

Brazilian-born trumpeter, composer, arranger and educator João Lenhari has been based in Montréal since 2021. After studying at UNICAMP in Brazil, he completed a doctorate in jazz performance at the Université de Montréal, where he serves as a guest professor and directs the university’s Big Band.

Lenhari also joins Hilario Durán and Carleton University’s Allyson Rogers for the panel “Bringing Latin Jazz into Canadian Music Education.” His dual role as performer and educator reflects a conference concerned not only with presenting the music, but with passing its history and language to future generations.

Oná Ensemble: Brazil Meets Toronto

Toronto’s Oná Ensemble offers a clear expression of the conference’s multicultural theme. The Canadian-Brazilian chamber-jazz group draws largely on compositions by guitarist André Valério and combines Brazilian traditions with jazz improvisation and chamber-music textures.

Its distinctive instrumentation—two French horns, bassoon, reeds, guitar, bass and percussion—gives the ensemble an immediately recognizable sound. Traces of Brazil, Voices of Toronto places Brazilian ideas within Toronto’s creative environment, showing how migration and collaboration can generate new possibilities without losing connection to cultural roots.

Adis Rodríguez: The Continuing Power of Cuban Song

Toronto-based Cuban vocalist Adis Rodríguez brings the legacy of Cuban song into Saturday’s program. Her Havana 1950s project revisits the richness of Cuba’s popular-music traditions, while her performances place equal emphasis on song, personal memory and cultural storytelling.

Rodríguez adds an essential reminder that Latin jazz is not only an instrumental language. It is also inseparable from song, storytelling and cultural memory.

Joy Lapps Project: Expanding the Caribbean Conversation

With Joy Lapps, the conference broadens its Caribbean perspective beyond Cuba. The Toronto-born steelpan artist, composer and educator is of Antiguan and Barbudan descent and has built a distinctive musical voice around an instrument deeply rooted in Caribbean history.

Her work brings steelpan into dialogue with jazz and wider Caribbean influences, while her broader practice emphasizes education, community engagement and recognition of women’s contributions to the steelband movement. Her appearance reinforces the Caribbean’s place within this musical conversation.

Hilario Durán & Jorge Luis “Papiosco” Torres: Returning to the Afro-Cuban Source

The conference reaches one of its deepest historical points with pianist Hilario Durán and percussionist Jorge Luis Torres “Papiosco.”

Durán, born in Havana, was Chucho Valdés’ successor in the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna before spending nine years as pianist, arranger and musical director with Arturo Sandoval. Since moving to Canada in 1998, he has become one of the country’s leading Latin jazz artists and educators.

A multiple JUNO winner and GRAMMY nominee, Durán won the 2024 Latin GRAMMY for Best Arrangement for “Night in Tunisia.”

At OLJC, Durán and Papiosco present Yoruba & Jazz, a project exploring the meeting of Yoruba-derived Afro-Cuban rhythmic traditions and contemporary jazz improvisation. They will also lead Saturday’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Workshop, linking the conference’s educational mission directly to its performance program.

Many Journeys, One Canadian Stage

Friday, September 25 features Rachelle Behrens, Anh Phung & Civil Lizard and the Orlando Cardoso Trio. Saturday brings Oná Ensemble, João Lenhari and Adis Rodríguez. Sunday closes with the Joy Lapps Project and Hilario Durán with Jorge Luis Papiosco.

What connects these artists is not a single nationality or a narrow definition of Latin jazz. It is movement—of people, traditions, ideas and musical languages across borders.

For three days in Ottawa, those paths will meet on the same stage, offering a vivid picture of a Canadian Latin jazz scene rooted in history while continuing to expand through migration, collaboration and cultural exchange.