Many years ago, American Airlines ran a contest asking entrants to write an essay about the place they most wanted to visit. The top prize was a trip to that destination. “I wrote that New Orleans was my spiritual home,” remembers Arturo O’Farrill, the 45-year-old, Mexican-born, New York City-raised pianist who is the son of noted Cuban composer Chico O’Farrill. “I wrote a whole essay on how much I owed New Orleans and how I owed so much of what I do and who I am to New Orleans. And I didn’t win. I guess they were quite impressed,” O’Farrill says with a laugh.

O’Farrill cites New Orleans as being particularly important to piano players mentioning artists such as Jelly Roll Morton and Dr. John, and his wish to come to the city eventually came true. The first time, he breezed through, making a quick stop to play a gig. Last year, an invitation by the CubaNola Collective for a residency in the city offered O’Farrill the opportunity to enjoy an extended stay. The cultural exchange organization has sponsored a return trip for the multi-faceted pianist. This year’s residency includes a performance with jazz students at the University of New Orleans as part of its Sandbar Series (Wednesday, April 12). O’Farrill will be joined by his band with trumpeter Jim Seeley, bassist Ruben Rodriquez and drummer Phoenix Rivera for a two-night stand at Snug Harbor (April 13 and 14) and a Banner Series concert in Lake Charles. He will also lead workshops at Lusher and Gretna middle schools.

An added treat to this already ambitious CubaNola program is the simultaneous arrival of Yosvany Terry, a young, Cuban saxophonist who presently resides in New York. Folks might remember him from when he was in town acting as co-arranger for the group Cubanismo’s 1999 New Orleans-meets-Cuba album Mardi Gras Mambo. The saxophonist will also bring in his own band. Though the two leaders, who have never played together before, haven’t nailed down just how their collaboration will work, word is that they’ll be a lot of mixing it up with O’Farrill and Terry each playing with each other’s groups.

“I know he’s a great musician,” O’Farrill says, promising their musical meeting to be lots of fun.

The pianist’s connections with New Orleans exist on many levels — emotional, philosophical and musical. He met Wynton Marsalis when the trumpeter was still a student at Julliard and the two were involved in a “reading band” that assembled in Chinatown. When O’Farrill’s father released what is considered to be his reemergence CD, 1995’s Pure Emotion, Marsalis extended an invitation for Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra to perform at Lincoln’s Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

“We kind of reconnected,” says O’Farrill who mentioned to the trumpeter his interest in preserving the traditions of the Afro-Caribbean big bands. In 2001, Marsalis acted on the suggestion and asked O’Farrill to create the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. The ensemble continues to play three to four concerts each season in New York and travels across the country and abroad.

O’Farrill took advantage of his time in New Orleans last year by fully immersing himself in the city’s culture. He not only went to the Mardi Gras Indian Council’s uptown Indian Sunday parade, but participated in it. “There was a young boy in full [Indian] regalia and his mom and dad had me walk with the stroller,” O’Farrill says. “It was absolutely brilliant. I was mesmerized. It’s such high culture, such high art for me to see people express themselves on such a profound level. I was deeply moved.”

O’Farrill’s resume speaks of his wide musical tastes and experiences, performing with the progressive Carla Bley Big Band from 1979-1983, digging in with the hot Latin sounds of the Fort Apache Band and sharing the stage with the creative trumpeter Lester Bowie. “I have to do what I do,” he says. “I’m a product in many ways of so many different cultures and synthesized sounds and I play everything. I feel the emphasis on the performances in New Orleans will be on that diversity. Synthesizing styles is not a catchall kind of patchwork quilt of thing. They all coalesce under the identities of the musicians and their personalities and their artistry. In this case, we’ll do a fair amount of Latin and a fair amount of straight-ahead swing.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the pianist claims his roots are in free jazz.

“When it’s done well, there’s nothing quite as jazz,” he says. “It’s really the spirit of jazz. I’m a New York loft scene person. My philosophy is if it’s wonderful, beautiful music that stirs my soul and makes me more human, I’ll attempt to play it. I certainly love to try and play every kind of music I can because I’m just a huge music fanatic. I still consider myself first and foremost a fan.”

O’Farrill might not have won the essay contest, but nonetheless he became connected to his spiritual home through a chance meeting in 2002 with CubaNola’s executive director, Ariana Hall at the Havana Jazz Festival. It was O’Farrill’s first visit to Cuba and thanks to CubaNola was able to return the next year to accompany the group to Santiago.

“Cultural exchange can be a bad excuse for tourism or it can really result in the opening of people’s minds,” O’Farrill suggests. “CubaNola does the true work of cultural exchange. They really bring people to have an awareness of the differences between cultures and the similarities. Particularly in the case of Havana and New Orleans the Cuban connection is so clear and so wonderful and such a brilliant part of our heritage.

“New Orleans has a very Cuban vibe to me. It’s one of those places like Havana, like Rio, that has music in the air.”