For those unaware, Latin Jazz Meets Opera (out now on Zoho Music) is a deeply personal album. It tells the story of Christopher Sánchez’s life through music, tracing how Latin rhythm, opera, and jazz shaped his identity across family, migration, and place.

What begins in the Dominican Republic through inherited sound and memory unfolds in New York City, where those traditions converge and mature. This album is not a stylistic experiment. It is the sound of a life lived between cultures, brought into focus through voice.

Caribbean music has always evolved through migration. In the twentieth century, Latin rhythms and American jazz collided in New York and gave rise to Latin Jazz, a genre born from diaspora and shaped by memory, reinvention, and ambition.

With this album, Sánchez takes the next step in that evolution. He brings Latin Jazz into opera not as a novelty, but as a continuation of Caribbean artistry, becoming more expansive and more fully at home in its adopted capital.

Christopher’s story begins in Santiago, Dominican Republic, within a musical inheritance shaped by the mid-twentieth century. Bolero, cha-cha-chá, crooner elegance, and salon orchestras formed the sound world of his parents’ generation, carried forward through radio broadcasts, late-night gatherings, and family ritual.

His family absorbed this music long before he was born, and he inherited it before he could name it. Music moved through living rooms and conversations, through shared stories and collective memories.

Growing up in the United States, Christopher learned Spanish at home, where Latin music was played freely. Outside, English dominated and other customs prevailed. Music became a way of navigating those parallel worlds. It raised questions that followed him everywhere. While Caribbean rhythm felt instinctive in his body, opera spoke strongly to his imagination.

1. Quien Será
2. Carmen’s Habanera
3. La Ci Darem La Mano
4. Damisela Encantadora
5. Unforgettable
6. The Flower Duet
7. Bachata Rosa
8. Quizás Quizás
9. The Shadow Of Your Smile
10. Un Retoño De Santiago
11. The Christmas Song

On an album that also contains three vocal duets with the rising MET opera soprano Jazmine Saunders, Sánchez opens on the gentle hipsway of Quien Será and the abundantly impressive Carmen’s Habanera and then we get the luxuriant La Ci Darem La Mano, the elegant singalong-imbued Damisela Encantadora, and both the sweeping Unforgettable and the more strident fare of The Flower Duet.

Along next is the opulently sculpted Bachata Rosa which is itself backed seamlessly by the low laid infectiousness of rhythm within Quizás Quizás, the all-embracing The Shadow Of Your Smile, the set rounding out on the gentle dancefloor swirls and twirls of Un Retoño De Santiago, coming to a close on the beautiful festive track The Christmas Song.

Official Purchase Link

Latin Jazz Meets Opera - New York City [Official Video]

Christopher Sánchez @ YouTube