PAQUITO D'RIVERA

Description

FEATURING: PAQUITO D'RIVERA - CLARINET & SAX 
OSCAR STAGNARO - ELECTRIC BASS 
MARK WALKER - DRUMS 
ALEX BROWN - PIANO 
DIEGO URCULA - TRUMPET & VALVE TROMBONE

Paquito D'Rivera defies categorization. The winner of fourteen GRAMMY Awards, he is celebrated both for his artistry in Latin jazz and his achievements as a classical composer. 

Born in Havana, Cuba, he performed at age 10 with the National Theater Orchestra, studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music and, at 17, became a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony. As a founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, he directed that group for two years, while at the same time playing both the clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. He eventually went on to premier several works by notable Cuban composers with the same orchestra. Additionally, he was a founding member and co-director of the innovative musical ensemble Irakere. With its explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical and traditional Cuban music never before heard, Irakere toured extensively throughout America and Europe, won several GRAMMY nominations (1979, 1980) and a GRAMMY (1979). 

In addition to his extraordinary performing career as an instrumentalist, Mr. D'Rivera has rapidly gained a reputation as an accomplished composer. The prestigious music house, Boosey and Hawkes, is the exclusive publisher of Mr. D'Rivera's compositions. Recent recognition of his compositional skills came with the award of a 2007 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, and the 2007-2008 appointment as Composer-In-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. As part of the Caramoor Latin American music initiative, Sonidos Latinos, D'Rivera's new concerto for double bass and clarinet/saxophone, "Conversations with Cachao," pays tribute to Cuba's legendary bass player, Israel "Cachao" Lopez. D'Rivera's works often reveal his widespread and eclectic musical interests, which range from Afro-Cuban rhythms and melodies, including influences encountered in his many travels, and back to his classical origins. Inspiration for another recent composition, "The Cape Cod Files", comes from such disparate sources as Benny Goodman's intro to the Eubie Blake popular song "Memories of You", Argentinean Milonga, improvisations on the music of Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, and North American boogie-woogie. His numerous commissions include compositions for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the National Symphony Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Ying String Quartet, the International Double Reed Society, Syracuse University, Montreal's Gerald Danovich Saxophone Quartet, and the Grant Park Music Festival. 

Another commission came about through ensemble Opus 21's interest in building bridges between audiences of different backgrounds. Dedicated to the works and art music of the 21st century, Opus 21 commissioned "The Chaser" and premiered it in May, 2006. In 2005, Imani Winds, a woodwind quintet committed to the exploration of diverse world music traditions and the broadening of the traditional wind quintet literature, commissioned "Kites." This work personifies freedom and the vision that liberty and independence have a foundation through culture and music. Just as a kite may fly freely, its path continues to be bound to the earth-its foundation, by the string.