Cristián Cuturrufo

He died from COVID-19 in Santiago on 19 March 2021.

The last gig he performed was in early March 2021 with The Chilean Project via streaming for the Rosita Renard Festival of the Municipality of Pirque held at the Castillo de las Majadas.

On 17 March 2021, the information was he had reportedly fallen ill with COVID-19 along with his partner, being therefore admitted in critical condition to the Las Condes Clinic in Santiago. The hospitalization occurred following two cardiorespiratory arrests due to complications derived from the contagion, for which he was transferred to the clinic by helicopter from his house in Peñalolén. He died on 19 March 2021, at the age of 48.

After a long time of not publishing albums at the rhythm that he had been offering, the trumpeter presented a work entitled Socos (2019), where he presented a single new composition ("Socos"). By that time, already residing in the capital's Ecological Community of Peñalolén, he joined the musicians Jorge Campos (bass) and Pedro Greene (drums), with whom he arrived at the Cairo Jazz Festival, in Egypt in 2020, in which it would be his last tour. This project would be shown in Chile at the Las Condes Jazz Festival held in December 2020.

In 2015, he declared himself against the SCD (Chilean Society of Musical Authors and Interpreters) for being "very shady". In the same interview he stated that he considered himself more than a jazz player, a musician who enjoyed traditional cumbia, jazz, and rock-pop, and that he detested reggaeton, bachata, and romantic cumbia.

During 2009, the trumpeter made news again with an extensive tour of New Zealand and Southeast Asia, to favourable reviews. In the middle of 2009, he published his first jazz anthology, entitled Thirty Years on Trumpet and in January 2010 he appeared for the first time at the Providencia International Jazz Festival commanding a multinational ensemble of eleven musicians including his swing colleague Jimmy Coll (tenor saxophone soloist), Claudio Rubio (section tenor sax), Eduardo Peña (electric bass) and Carlos Cortés (drums), who again addressed Afro-Cuban music and Latin jazz.

After a while he returns to his original style, but this time fusing jazz with funk creating the album Cristián Cuturrufo and the Latin Funk (2006), with his usual sextet and also developing the Chilean swing with Swing nacional (2007) together with the trombonist Héctor "Parquímetro" Briceño.

From that moment on, he dedicated more time to his role as producer of musical encounters and events such as the Las Condes Jazz Festival created in 2005, in Parque Padre Hurtado, in addition to the creation of jazz clubs such as The Jazz Corner in Barrio Italia (where he played alongside many figures such as Wynton Marsalis or Esperanza Spalding) and Boliche Jazz in 2017. His next album was with the stellar cast who recorded a concert at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York, along with Christian Gálvez, Nelson Arriagada and Alejandro Espinosa, a record published by the Pez label under the title The Chilean Project live at the Blue Note (2016).

He also worked alongside the legendary old-guard pianist Valentín Trujillo. Along with the popular piano teacher, Cuturrufo acquired a better position in terms of popular and massive musical repertoires performing swing duets that he recorded on the albums Jazz de salon (2004) and Villancicos (2005).

Christian Alejandro Cuturrufo Contador (27 June 1972 – 19 March 2021) was a Chilean musician and cultural manager, and one of the most prominent jazz trumpeters in his country.