At the Twin Cities Jazz Fest on Saturday, audiences will hear music from an array of genres and continents as saxophonist Lucia Sarmiento channels her experiences with music and life into her performance. This act of combining is inherent in Sarmiento’s genre, jazz fusion, but the Peruvian-born musician puts it at the center of her art.
“My music is a mix of all the different lives that I’ve lived,” Sarmiento said. “It’s the sum of every place that I’ve lived, and every person that I’ve loved, and every friend that I’ve loved as well.”
Sarmiento was born and raised in Lima, Peru, where she developed a passion for Peruvian and Afro-Peruvian sounds, and for groove and rhythm. She moved to Minnesota in 2013 to attend St. Paul’s now-defunct McNally Smith College of Music. Although she moved to Chicago a year and a half ago, Sarmiento considers Minneapolis to have raised her musically. She learned new forms and ways of feeling music from the strong funk and R&B presence here…