Latin music icon Gloria Estefan coming to Connecticut for distinguished lecture series

Latin music icon Gloria Estefan will give the 23rd annual Mary and Louis Fusco Distinguished Lecture at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven on April 27 in the school’s John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts, the university announced Tuesday.

The 7 p.m. event, which is open to the public, will feature a moderated conversation with Estefan about her life and work, with an emphasis on the inspiration she has provided to the Latinx community.

With her band Miami Sound Machine — led by Emilio Estefan, whom the singer married in 1978 — the Cuban-born longtime Miami resident has been a global pop star since the 1980s. Her Top 10 charting hits in the U.S. include “Conga,” “Bad Boy,” “Words Get in the Way,” “Rhythm is Gonna Get You,” “Can’t Stay Away from You,” “Anything for You,” “1-2-3,” “Don’t Wanna Lose You,” “Here We Are,” “Coming Out of the Dark” and the NSYNC collaboration “Music of My Heart.” On the more specific U.S. Latin charts, she has had over two dozen hits.

She is the recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors and seven Grammy awards.

Besides their ongoing pop career, Gloria and Emilio Estefan have had remarkable success in many other fields, from investing in sports teams and media companies to running restaurants and writing bestselling books.

Connecticut’s most recent exposure to Estefan’s indomitable spirit was the national tour of “On Your Feet!,” a Broadway musical based on Gloria and Emilio’s marriage, artistic collaborations and business partnership. The show played The Bushnell in 2018 and the Shubert Theatre and Waterbury Palace in 2023. When it was in Hartford, the musical featured actual members of Miami Sound Machine in its orchestra.

Estefan herself brought her concert tours to Connecticut from the late 1980s (when she performed at smaller venues like the University of Hartford and the Oakdale) through the ‘90s (at The Meadows and Hartford Civic Center) and the 2000s (at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun). Her last major tour was the 90 Millas World Tour in 2008-09.

Past SCSU distinguished lecture speakers have included President Joe Biden (in 2018, when he was Vice President), former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, TV news icons Walter Cronkite, Tim Russert and Robin Roberts, Patriots coach Bill Belichick, Yankees manager Brian Cashman, ESPN’s Peter Gammons, sports legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mariano Rivera and Joe Torre, filmmaker Spike Jones, EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg, actor/activists Alan Alda, Michael J. Fox and the couple Christopher and Dana Reeve, astronaut Mark Kelly, New York politicians Mario Cuomo and Rudy Giuliani, Olympic athletes Michael Phelps and Apolo Ohno, former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak and comedian Jay Leno.

Tickets are available starting on March 19 at noon through the SCSU box office at www.lymancenter.org. Tickets cost $40 or $50, or $30 each for groups of 10 or more. A limited number of VIP Reception packages (including a post-show reception and a photo opportunity with Estefan) are available for $150 per person. Some of the proceeds from the April 27 event will support SCSU’s Endowed Awards of Excellence scholarship program.