Aguas Trio, an incantation
where water meets fire
Omar Sosa, Yilian Cañizares and Gustavo Ovalles take us on a journey between memory and reinvention
February 19, 2026
On February 28 at Place des Arts, Traquen’Art presents Aguas Trio, featuring Omar Sosa, Yilian Cañizares, and Gustavo Ovalles, in a Cinquième Salle transformed into a true musical ceremony where water takes shape in sounds, rhythms, and light. Two generations of Cuban artists, united by exile, memory, and spirituality, will present a vibrant celebration of Afro-Cuban roots, an inner journey between tradition and modernity, where the master of composition and melody meets the energy and creativity of a fiery violinist, carried by the subtle trance of Afro-Venezuelan percussion.
Like water, Aguas Trio’s music evokes infinite transmutations, the memory of origins, exile and fertile nostalgia.
After the success of the trio projects Transparent Water and SUBA, Omar Sosa is continuing his exploration of the theme of water with Aguas, an album and a performance that are deeply personal. Aguas casts a sensitive gaze on exile, memory and the quest for belonging, while celebrating the power of the Afro‑Cuban tradition. Here, water is at once source, mirror, abyss and promise: it links continents, generations and imaginations.
From this inspiration is born a rare artistic dialogue, where mutual respect is doubled by total freedom. On stage, Aguas Trio extends this first improvised “rehearsal”: every glance, every silence, every breath becomes musical material. Omar’s piano opens up spaces, Yilian’s violin and voice rush into them, and Gustavo’s percussion redraws their contours. Everything seems at once meticulously constructed and constantly in the process of being born.
An Afro‑Cuban spiritual journey
Aguas Trio is the shared perspective of two generations of Cuban artists living outside their country of origin, revisiting their roots with subtlety and freedom. Far from clichés, their Afro‑Cuban identity unfolds in refined writing, where traditional rhythms merge with contemporary harmonies and muted electronic textures. Omar Sosa’s piano, inhabited by the mystical echoes of the Yoruba tradition, dialogues with the instrumental and vocal flashes of Yilian Cañizares.
Their improvisations, sometimes whispered, sometimes incantatory, weave an inventive link between Afro‑Cuban roots, Western classical music and contemporary jazz. Yilian’s voice, almost whispered in certain passages, sometimes takes on the accents of prayer or invocation, while the violin oscillates between classical lyricism and burning groove.
The work is dedicated to Water — a symbol of life, energy and transformation — and more specifically to Ochun, the goddess of Love and mistress of rivers in the Lucumí (Santería) tradition, a spiritual practice that is important to both artists. Through this guiding thread, Aguas evokes the memory of the ancestors, Atlantic crossings, the pain of exile and the resilient beauty of Afro‑descendant cultures.
On stage, each piece is a small offering: to the sea, to the river, to the rain, to memory. The themes unfold like ebb and flow, gradually building a kind of gentle trance in which time seems to stretch. For the audience, the experience is as physical as it is emotional: you listen, but you also feel, in your body, the pulse of the drums and the harmonic waves of the piano.
Water, memory and fire
“Where water meets fire”: this phrase perfectly captures the trio’s alchemy. Water is the fluid lines of the piano, the supple melodies of the violin, the voice that flows like an ancient song. Fire is the rhythmic outbursts, the percussive accents, the surges of intensity when the whole room seems to vibrate as one. The performance advances through metamorphoses: a contemplative ballad can suddenly ignite into dance and turn into a collective invocation.
‘Aguas Trio is the shared perspective of two generations of Cuban artists living outside their country of origin, revisiting their roots with subtlety and freedom. ‘
The themes of exile and fertile nostalgia run through the entire project. In revisiting their roots from a distance, Sosa and Cañizares are not trying to reconstruct an idealized past, but to invent a new way of being “from here and elsewhere.” Aguas thus becomes a bridge between Cuba and Europe, between the shores of Lake Geneva, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean Sea, between childhood memories and the realities of the contemporary world. The music becomes an emotional map, liquid memory in motion. For those who wish to dive into this universe ahead of time, the Aguas album is available online. There, you find the same aesthetic: a delicate balance between intimacy and breadth, between writing and improvisation, between earth and water.
About the artists
A Cuban composer and pianist, Omar Sosa is one of the most versatile jazz artists on today’s scene. He fuses a wide range of jazz, world music and electronic elements with his Afro‑Cuban roots to create a fresh, urban and original sound, with a heart that is resolutely Latin jazz. His musical journey has taken him from Camagüey and Havana to tours in Angola, Congo, Ethiopia and Nicaragua in the 1980s; then to a stay among Afro‑descendant communities in Ecuador in the early 1990s; followed by a strong presence on the Latin jazz scene in the San Francisco Bay Area; and on to his current collaborations with artists from France, Germany, Cuba, Brazil and several countries in North, West and East Africa. In Aguas Trio, he brings this global experience to bear in the service of deeply intimate music.
Yilian Cañizares is one of the most fascinating violinists, singers and composers on the contemporary scene. Without ever betraying her roots, she weaves together jazz, classical music and Afro‑Cuban rhythms in a style that is entirely her own, carried by a voice that seems to come from another world. Yilian’s love for music emerged very early: she began violin and piano at the age of four and, at just fourteen, received a scholarship to study in Caracas. Later, in 2000, she moved to Fribourg, Switzerland, to study at the conservatory. A few years later, after settling in Lausanne, she collaborated with various ensembles and founded the quartet Ochumare, with which she won the Montreux Jazz Festival Competition in 2008. With Omar Sosa, she has found an ideal partner to explore the spiritual and poetic dimension of her art.
Venezuelan percussionist and educator Gustavo Ovalles has studied a wide range of techniques, musical styles and dances, before collaborating with international artists such as David Murray, D’Gary, Omar Sosa, Julien Lourau, Minimo Garay, Orlando Poleo, Seckou Keita, Yilian Cañizares and Juan Diego Flórez. His commitment on stage, his deep command of traditional Venezuelan instruments, his interpretive sensitivity and dedication to the compositions, along with his unmistakable techniques and creativity, make him an exceptional musician and artist, highly appreciated by both his colleagues and audiences. In Aguas Trio, he embodies the pulse, the deep heartbeat, the ritual dimension of the music.
An intimate evening at the Cinquième Salle
Presented by Traquen’Art as part of the Musiques et Traditions du Monde series, this concert promises total immersion in a sound world that is both refined and visceral. The intimate configuration of the Cinquième Salle at Place des Arts is perfectly suited to this kind of encounter: closeness to the artists, warm acoustics, and the feeling of being at the very heart of the musical gesture.
One thing is certain: that evening in Montréal, water will take on the colour of piano, violin, voice and drums, and it will keep transforming in the hands of these three alchemists of sound.
Aguas Trio
Omar Sosa and Yilian Cañizares with Gustavo Ovalles
Saturday, February 28, 2026, 8 pm.
Cinquième Salle, Place des Arts
175 Sainte‑Catherine Street West
Tickets
514 842‑2112 | 1 866 842‑2112
Images: Courtesy of Traquen’Art
