Dafnis Prieto with UW Contemporary Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Orchestra – Isthmus

press release: Mead Witter School of Music Guest Artist Series. $13.

April 29 at 8 p.m.: Dafnis Prieto with Contemporary Jazz Ensemble & UW Jazz Orchestra

April 30 at 8 p.m.: Dafnis Prieto with the UW World Percussion Ensemble & the UW Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble

From Cuba, the revolutionary percussion techniques and compositions of Dafnis Prieto 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 Latin GRAMMY Award nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album for Dafnis Prieto Big Band Back to the Sunset in 2018; a GRAMMY nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album for Dafnis Prieto Sextet Transparency in 2021; a GRAMMY nomination for 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 a gifted educator, Prieto has conducted numerous master classes, clinics and workshops around the world. He was a faculty member of Jazz Studies at NYU from 2005 to 2014, and in 2015 became a faculty member of the 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 groups ranging from duos to large groups, including the distinctly different groups featured on eight acclaimed recordings as as leader: About The Monks, Absolute Quintet, Take 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.

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