Dafnis Prieto, steps away
Dafnis Prieto and most of humanity are within 6 degrees of each other. This matrix combines the small-world principle behind this seemingly magical fact with inter-artist recommendations-in-series in order to make all artists potential curators and discoverable within a handful (or two) of steps from everywhere on the planet. It works like this:
I RECOMMEND people (do you?)Dafnis Prieto & degrees of proximity
Why again is Dafnis Prieto mere steps away from other artists in here, and by extension, most everybody on the planet?
WHO CURATES "I RECOMMEND" ABOVE?
- Vertex/Edges Out by: The Matrix
Artist & Where
- Name: Dafnis Prieto
- City/Place: Miami, Florida
- Country: United States
- Hometown: Santa Clara, Cuba
Life & Work
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Bio:
From Cuba, Dafnis Prieto's revolutionary drumming techniques and compositions have had a powerful impact on the Latin and Jazz music scene, nationally and internationally.
Various awards include a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship Award; a GRAMMY Award and a Latin GRAMMY Award nomination as Best Latin Jazz Album for Dafnis Prieto Big Band Back to the Sunset in 2018; a GRAMMY Award nomination as Best Latin Jazz Album for Absolute Quintet, and a Latin GRAMMY nomination for "Best New Artist" in 2007; and "Up & Coming Musician of the Year" by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2006. Also a gifted educator, Prieto has conducted numerous master classes, clinics, and workshops throughout the world. He was a faculty member of Jazz Studies at NYU from 2005 to 2014, and in 2015 became a faculty member of Frost School of Music at UM (University of Miami).
As a composer, Prieto has created music for dance, film, chamber ensembles, and most notably for his own bands ranging from duets to big bands, including the distinctively different groups featured by eight acclaimed recordings as a leader: About The Monks, Absolute Quintet, Taking The Soul For a Walk, Si o Si Quartet-Live at Jazz Standard, Dafnis Prieto Proverb Trio, Triangles and Circles, Back to the Sunset, and Transparency. He has received new works commissions, grants, and fellowships from Chamber Music America, Princeton University, Jazz at Lincoln Center, East Carolina University, and Meet the Composer.
Prieto has performed at many national and international music festivals as a bandleader presenting his own projects and music, as well as a sideman. Since his arrival to New York in 1999, Prieto has worked in bands led by Michel Camilo, Chucho Valdés, Bebo Valdés, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Chico and Arturo O'Farrill, Dave Samuels & The Caribbean Jazz Project, Jane Bunnett, D.D. Jackson, Edward Simon, Roy Hargrove, Don Byron, and Andrew Hill, among others.
In 2016 Prieto published the groundbreaking analytical and instructional drum book, A World of Rhythmic Possibilities. In March 2020 he published Rhythmic Synchronicity, a book for non-drummers inspired by a course of the same name that Prieto developed at the Frost School of Music.
Prieto is the founder of the independent music company Dafnison Music. He endorses: Yamaha Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Latin Percussion, Evans Drumheads, and Vic Firth Sticks.
Contact Information
- Contact by Webpage: http://dafnisonmusic.com/contact
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Management/Booking:
Booking:
Dafnis Prieto Big Band
Dafnis Prieto Sextet
Dafnis Prieto Sí o Sí Quartet
Dafnis Prieto Proverb Trio
Hans Wendl, Hans Wendl Produktion
artists@hanswendl.com
510.848.3864
Publicity:
Chris DiGirolamo, Two for the Show Media
Chris@Twofortheshowmedia.com
631.298.7823
Media & Markets
- ▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://dafnisonmusic.com/shop?category=CDs+by+Dafnis+Prieto
- ▶ Buy My Merch: http://dafnisonmusic.com/shop
- ▶ Charts/Scores: http://dafnisonmusic.com/scores-charts
- ▶ Book Purchases: http://dafnisonmusic.com/shop?category=Books
- ▶ Twitter: dafnisprieto
- ▶ Instagram: dafnisprieto
- ▶ Website: http://dafnisonmusic.com
- ▶ YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dafnison
- ▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCbhQSwG8-FIu03qmmEEWQ4w
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/66ddMl9jBOyoSeM9WLQgjh
- ▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/3qwngFIA2IpAJKb8qXicAO
- ▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/7iZx59cgx80Z7jgKK72bGv
- ▶ Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/0zrTGZgV3QycCborrQlHm1
- ▶ Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/4cVleu2VjKo3Ujz86nzDqB
- ▶ Spotify 6: http://open.spotify.com/album/3sD2Fxv95NDI5q5ZiRKgMC
- ▶ Articles: http://dafnisonmusic.com/press
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Honors, Grants & Commissions:
GRAMMY Award, Best Latin Jazz Album, Dafnis Prieto Big Band Back to the Sunset, 2019
Latin GRAMMY Nomination, Best Latin Jazz Album, Dafnis Prieto Big Band Back to the Sunset, 2018
National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC) Fund for the Arts Grant, Dafnis Prieto Big Band, 2018
Commissioned by the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, for a new work for the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, 'The Triumphant Journey', 2014
Opening track of the Latin GRAMMY-winning album, Cuba: The Conversation Continues, 2015
MacArthur Fellowship, 2011
Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, 2009
Commissioned by WNYC, for a New Work, 2009
Commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, for a new work for the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, 'Song for Chico', 2005
Title track of the GRAMMY-winning album, Song for Chico, 2008
Commissioned by Meet the Composer, Commissioning Music, 2007
Latin GRAMMY Nomination, Best New Artist, 2007
GRAMMY Nomination, Best Latin Jazz Album, Dafnis Prieto Absolute Quintet, 2007
Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Award, Up & Coming Musician of the Year, 2006
Commissioned by the Ethos Percussion Group, under auspices of the Jerome Foundation, 'The Guiros Talk', a piece for 4 guiros (1 mov) & 'Claveteando', a piece for 4 sets of percussion (2 mov), 2006
Commissioned by the New Trumpet Consortium, a piece for trumpet & percussion, 'Trail of Memories', 2005
Commissioned by East Carolina University (Greenville, NC) to write a piece, 'Echo Dimensions', for the Meridian Arts Ensemble (Brass Quintet & Percussion), 2005
Meet the Composer Van Lier Fellowship, 2005
Commissioned by The Painted Bride, Philadelphia, 2005
Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Award, 2005
Commissioned by the CBC in Toronto, Canada to write a piece, 'On and On', for the True North Brass Quintet, 2004
Composed music for the GRAMMY-winning album, The Gathering, by The Caribbean Jazz Project, 2002
Music & Dance Collaborations:
Music for 'Taking the Soul for a Walk', Ballet Contemporaneo de Camaguey, Pedro Ruiz, Artistic Director. Performed at: Hunter College, NYC, March 2019; Teatro Avellaneda, Camaguey, Cuba, June 2017 & Teatro Martí, Havana, Cuba, August 2017
Music for the dance work, 'Citizens and Individuals?', Commissioned by Danspace Project, 2005
'Time in Circles', The Joyce Theater, NYC, Spring 2002
'Forms and Sounds', The Jazz Gallery, NYC, 2002
'Puzzle/Rompecabezas', The Kitchen, NYC, Fall 2002
'Sang', Danspace Project, Spring 2002
'A Mouth in a Sleeping Shell', PS 122, NYC, Winter 2000
'Un Lugar', Havana, 1996
My Instruction
Clips (more may be added)
ABOUT THE MATRIX
This matrix is dedicated to creative artists and non-algorithmic discovery.
It was described (to some degree) and can be accessed via this article in British journal The Guardian (which named our radio of matrixed artists as one of ten best in the world):
www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/17/10-best-music-radio-station-around-world
While the Brazilian musicians I work with now you may not know, I formerly worked (chasing unpaid royalties!) on behalf of Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, Jim Hall, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Philip Glass, The Cadillacs (Earl Carroll), The Flamingos (Zeke and Jake Carey), and others, including Oscar-winning world-class great-guy Robb Royer. I was interviewed by David Dye for broadcast on U.S. National Public Radio several years ago ... about the Brazilians:
- Randy "Pardal/Sparrow" Roberts
All is more connected than we know.
w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio
The matrix was inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone...
Our logo, per the "spirit" above, is a cortador de cana, a cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specialized in. The Brazilian "aleph" doesn't hum... it dances and sings.
