Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium ticket office is one of New York’s great democratic spaces — world-class performances, free admission, no tickets required. This summer, the Atrium anchors a season at Lincoln Center that puts Latin and Afro-Caribbean artistry front and center.
Latin Concerts at David Rubenstein Atrium
Brown Rice Family Jamaica Day: The Heartbeat of Jamaica
Brooklyn-based eight-member world roots band blending reggae, dancehall, Latin rhythms, and Afrobeat, in a family-friendly concert
Sat, August 8, 2026 | 12:00pm
FREE
Formed by City College of New York students, Brown Rice Family draws its eight members from Japan, Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria, South Africa, and the U.S., channeling that global mix into an organic hybrid of reggae, dancehall, Afrobeat, and Latin rhythm.
Opening Lincoln Center’s Jamaica Day, the band brings its Brooklyn-grown, globally rooted sound to families in a set that carries the island’s heartbeat well beyond its shores. In Jamaica, Independence Day is a week-long celebration that climaxes on August 6.
Brown rice is natural rice. White rice is manufactured. It has a longer shelf-life, but lacks the nutrients of the whole grain. The band’s name suggests that their music is not commercial. It’s the whole grain. Always thought rice came from Asia, but it was independently domesticated twice: once in China, and once in West Africa on the Upper Niger River. All the band members are from cultures where rice is one of the main starches.
Reggae’s foundational Nyabinghi drumming pattern offers something for New York City because we don’t make music alone, we make music together.
Jamaica is a small island with a big influence on global culture. People love reggae because it speaks to their suffering and calls for equality: One Love. We can use a lot of that now.
Manuela Sánchez Goubert
Colombian-born, Bronx-raised singer-songwriter blending jazz with Latin American folkloric traditions
David Rubenstein Atrium
Lincoln Square, Manhattan
Thu, August 6, 2026 | 7:30pm
FREE
Born and raised in the Colombian Andes before moving to New York as a teenager, Manuela Sánchez Goubert grew up in the Bronx and trained at LaGuardia High School and Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute under Danilo Pérez.
Colombians are so musically talented that to rise to the top, you have to be the best of the best. Colombia is famously one of the world’s most bio-diverse countries. The same is true for the land and the many cultures it supports. Colombia’s folkloric traditions are not something from the past done for tourists, they are living traditions of the people.
As a Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation ambassador, she’s built a sound that folds Colombian and Caribbean folkloric traditions into modern jazz reharmonizations. This Atrium date puts her cosmopolitan, cross-generational songcraft on one of NYC’s great free stages.
Zahili Zamora
Cuban-born jazz pianist, vocalist, and bandleader performing original compositions from her album “Overcoming”
Co-produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center
Sun, August 2, 2026 | 6:00pm
FREE
Born in Manzanillo, Cuba, Zahili Zamora trained at the National Conservatory of Music in Havana before her music carried her through Canada, Southeast Asia, and eventually to Boston, where she now teaches piano at Berklee.
This Atrium set, presented with Jazz at Lincoln Center, traces her Afro-Cuban roots through jazz harmony and personal storytelling, backed by bassist Gerson Lazo, drummer Julian Miltenberger, conguero Keisel Jiménez, and saxophonist Samuel Batista. It’s a rare chance to catch a Havana-born voice reshaping the language of jazz, for free, under the Atrium’s vertical gardens.
Sauljaljui
Indigenous Paiwan Taiwanese singer
Taiwanese alternative
Summer for the City festival
Fri, July 10, 2026 | 7:30pm
FREE
She’s not Latin, but preserves and updates some of Taiwan’s many Indigenous traditions, so we can connect to that. Coincidentally, some of her rhythms would not be out of place among many of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. People do similar things around the world because we are all human.
Sauljaljui mostly plays a Yueqin (Moon Lute). She plays it percussively with her community’s tribal dance rhythms. Mexicans did the same thing with Spanish guitars. She also plays the Paiwan double-barrel nose flute, a rare Indigenous flute played through the nose.
Her Indigenous community has a call and response tradition. Again, people do similar things. She often teaches her audience a few words and gets them in the song. Some of her songs have the feel of flamenco, some of Chinese pop. Some of her vocals sound Native American.
Artists like Sauljaljui don’t just make nice music. They are preserving their culture and native languages. The video for her song “Like It Used to Be” shows how similar we are. No matter where you are from, we still gather around the fire with family and friends, share food and drink, sing, dance, love, and tell stories. We are all Indigenous somewhere.
Brazil Day: Alici
Brazilian MPB
Though she is Música Popular Brasileira, her bossa nova is sweet
Summer for the City Festival with Brasil Summerfest
Thu, July 9, 2026 | 7:30pm
FREE
Alici’s breathy vocals make you dream of falling in love.
Louis Armstrong at 125, America at 250
Jazz tribute led by early jazz specialist Sam Chess
Summer for the City festival co-produced with Jazz at Lincoln Center
Sun, July 5, 2026 | 6pm
FREE
Trombonist Sam Chess (grandson of Chess Records founder) celebrates the man who changed popular music forever. There is music before and after Louis Armstrong. He made music flow naturally. Armstrong celebrated his birthday on July 4. You may want to visit the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens.
Carolina Mama
Argentine-born Latin alternative singer
With Argentine folk to rap influences
Summer for the City festival
Thu, July 2, 2026 | 7:30pm
FREE
Love her Argentine Castellano accent.
Orestes Gómez
Venezuelan-born Latin alternative drummer
Summer for the City festival
Fri, June 26, 2026 | 7pm
FREE
Blending jazz harmonies, Hip-Hop grooves, and forward-thinking production, Orestes Gómez is a dynamic performer creating music in the creative space where rhythm can evolve. The Venezuelan-born producer-drummer reimagines traditional Afro-Caribbean sound through a modern lens of pop, jazz, and Hip-Hop.
This is exactly the kind of artist the Atrium was built for: a musician operating at the intersection of tradition and innovation, rooted in the African and Caribbean foundations of Venezuelan music and pushing them somewhere entirely new. Gómez brings together the drum as both ancestral instrument and studio tool, making this one of the more conceptually interesting shows of the summer.
There is something about the drum that only drummers, priests, and perhaps dancers understand. It’s something you can’t fully describe, but you can feel it. Rhythm is the heartbeat of the universe. Gómez puts his heart into all kinds of music ~ centered on the drum. The drum kit extending Venezuelan tambores traditions places Oreste in the Latin alternative frame, but his beats are all over urbano Latino.
The Atrium’s intimate setting — under that 42-foot media wall, with vertical gardens flanking the stage — is the ideal room for this kind of performance. Come early for General Admission.
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There is a rhythm to their shows:
Shows are free. Just show up. But do show up at least an hour (or two) early.