Gina Benalcázar-López
Low Brass Specialist | Composer and Arranger | Band Leader | Educator
About Ginita
La Orquesta Esa’s Big Band debut at Dizzy’s Club March 2025; image by: Peter Lin at Yardbird Entertainment
Gina Benalcázar-López is an Ecuadorian-Honduran-American composer and low brass specialist. Influenced by straight-ahead jazz, latin-jazz, popular Latin American music, and musical theater, Ginita has performed with and arranged/composed for various size bands ranging in style from Classical Chamber to Jazz Big Band and Salsa Bands as well as Broadway orchestras and other theater productions. She composes for her Latin-jazz ensemble, La Orquesta Esa and is the resident arranger for NYC’s all women salsa band, Lulada Club.
She has worked as a side person with some of the world's most prolific band leaders and can be found playing with The Broadway Sinfonietta, The Roy Hargrove Big Band, Etienne Charles’ Creole Soul, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, The Rufus Reid Big Band, The Dee Dee Bridgewater Big Band, Ulysses Owens Jr’s New Century Big Band, Helen Sung’s Big Band, Lulada Club, and made her Broadway debut in Huey Lewis’ “The Heart of Rock and Roll.”
Ginita’s discography is expansive, credited her as both soloist and arranger/composer as a side-person. As a band leader Gina was selected as a recipient of Chamber Music America’s Performance Plus Grant in 2020 which helped her record her debut album, “The BOUNCE” featuring her original compositions. In 2024 she started operating her ensemble under the name “La Orquesta Esa,” an exhilarating latin-jazz ensemble taking New York City by storm. Thoughtfully comprised of some of NYC’s most accomplished and evocative musicians, consisting of primarily BIPOC members and half of the ensemble made of women, Ginita put together this company to create a space where diversity was intentional.
Located in the center of Central America, with a Caribbean touching coast, Honduras’ music is incredibly jubilant and vibrant. Influenced by Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia, Calypso, as well as being the epicenter of Punta music, it’s no wonder this ensemble’s program is also very diverse.
Commemorating the icons while offering a fresh perspective on the music, Ginita writes interesting and powerful arrangements of your favorite standards, as well as composing new and powerful pieces that are both danceable and breathtaking. The stars of the show seem to be the original pieces, the show production, and the extraordinary vocals by some of the city’s most dynamic Latine vocalists.
LOE made their Big Band debut in March 2025 for International Women’s Day premiering all new repertoire. With Ginita’s ability to adapt this ensemble’s songbook to any size, you can find LOE playing in various orientations and sizes, with Big Band being the favorite!
Gina is a Yamaha artist and plays exclusively on Yamaha instruments.
