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International Woodwind Festival |
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International Woodwind Festival |
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| Flute |
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| Oboe |
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| Clarinet |
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| Bassoon |
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| Horn |
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| Saxophone |
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| Piano |
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| Guest Artist |
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Paquito D'Rivera
Born in Havana
Cuba, Grammy Award winner
D’Rivera was a child prodigy who was playing the clarinet and the
saxophone and performing with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra at
a very early age. He founded the Orquesta
Cubana de Møsica Moderna and
Irakere
whose explosive mixture of Jazz, Rock, Classical and traditional
Cuban music had never been heard before, and in 1979,
Irakere was awarded
the Grammy as Best
Latin Jazz Ensemble. In 1981,
Mr. D’Rivera sought asylum in the United States, leaving his homeland.
His
numerous recordings have received rave reviews and hit the top of the
Jazz charts, With his ensembles;Triangulo, devoted exclusively to chamber music, the Paquito
D’Rivera Big Band and the Paquito
D’Rivera Quintet he tours throughout the world.
His appearances in classical venues include solo performances with
the National Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the London
Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Lukes, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, the Florida
Philharmonic, the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra and the Simón
Bolivar Symphonic Orchestra among others.
With the Cuban National Symphony he premiered and or recorded several
works by the foremost contemporary Cuban composer Leo Brower. In 1991
Mr. D’Rivera received the Lifetime Achievement Award
for his contribution to Latin music, along with Dizzy Gillespie
and Gato Barbieri, and in 1997 became recipient of his second Grammy Award
for the highly acclaimed,
“Portraits of Cuba.”
Since
his defection from Cuba, Paquito D’Rivera has taken command
of his role as a cross-cultural ambassador, creating
and promoting a multinational style that moves from Bebop to Latin
to Mozart. Throughout his
career in the United States, Europe,
Asia, and Latin America D’Rivera’s works have received rave
reviews from the critics.
D’Rivera is becoming increasingly well-known
for his compositions in addition to his extraordinary performing career.
His music shows his versatility and wide-ranging influences, from
Afro-Cuban ritual melodies to the music of the dance halls, through rhythms
encountered in his wide-ranging travels to his origins as a “classical”
performer.
In
this quest to bring the Latin-American repertoire into the forefront of
the so-called “classical arena” Paquito D’Rivera has created,
favored and promoted with success all types of musical
compositions with elements from “south of the border”. The Chamber Orchestra Werneck (based in Germany) presented a concert series titled Paquito
Meets Mozart featuring Paquito’s chamber compositions, alongside
those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which culminated in a piece written
by Paquito inspired on the 2nd movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto,
titled “Adagio”.
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For this concert, Paquito D'Rivera played almost exclusively the Clarinet.
The first half of the program was dedicated almost exclusively to the
music of Mozart. The first piece performed by D'Rivera as soloist with
the Werneck Schloss Chamber Orchestra was the Clarinet Concerto in A Major
KV 622. The orchestra as well as the soloist executed the work with perfect
intonation and precise interpretation.
At no time came the impression that two different musical worlds were
colliding. The concert was an offering
of excellence by virtue of the soloist and the orchestra, led by Ulf
Klautsenitzer. With a focused tone and intonation he effortlessly
graced through the various registers unwavering.
By:Peter Linhart
His
“Rivers”,
a Poetic suite, was premiered Sept. 25th, 1998 for the 25th anniversary
Opening Concert of the New Jersey
Chamber Music Society . Other commissions have included Montreal’s
Gerald Danovich Saxophone
Quartet, for which he wrote the acclaimed“
New York Suite”.
His suite “Aires Tropicales
commissioned by The Aspen Wind
Quintet is so popular that it has been arranged for many different
chambers ensembles and is already
part of the repertoire of numerous important wind quintets.
On December 19th, 1999, The American Saxophone Quartet premiered
“Quasi
An Arabesque” for
saxophone quartet and clarinet at the Merkin Concert Hall. Composed with his son Franco, (a fine composer/clarinetist
in his own right), the commissioned work features Paquito on Clarinet.
The Panamericana Suite
commissioned for
the Jazz @ Lincoln
Center’s “As of Now”
series at Alice Tully Hall will be premiered on February 10th and 12th,
2000 It will also be
recorded and broadcast on
National Public Radio at a future date.
On April 9th, 2000 a
yet untitled commission will be premiered at the New Jersey Performing
Arts Center. Other commissions for the year 2000 include works for
the Turtle Island String Quartet and The Ying Quartet.
Presently
Mr. D’Rivera is Artist in Residence at NJPAC and Artistic Director
for Jazz Programing of the New Jersey Chamber Music Society; sits on the Board of Directors of
Chamber Music International,
as well as the board of Chamber Music America, and the New
York Virtuosi Orchestra
. For the last five years
Mr. D’Rivera has been Artistic
Director of the famous world-class “Festival Internacional de Jazz
en el Tambo” now in
it’s fifth year in Punta del Este, Uruguay.
This year Mr. D’Rivera’s guests included such luminaries
as McCoy Tyner, James Moody, and Chico Hamilton.
A
gifted writer, Mr.D’Rivera’s
“My
Sax Life” is co-published
by the prestigious Editorial Plaza
Mayor Publishing House, based in Puerto Rico, with a
magnificent prologue by the Oscar winning film director Fernando
Trueba, and also by the Spanish literary house Seix
Barral with a prologue by the distinguished author Guillermo Cabrera
Infante. Mr. D’Rivera’s novel “En Tus Brazos Morenos”
will soon follow. On June
8th, 1999 Mr. D’Rivera received a special honorary award by Universidad de Alcalð de Henares, (for its 500 years celebration )
recognizing his contribution
to the arts, his humane qualities, and in
defense of the rights and liberty of artists. Then on July 14th,
1999 Paquito performed at the Kennedy
Center as featured guest artist in the historical “Americanos” concert, hosted by James Olmos, already an
acclaimed success after several national broadcasts.
Paquito’s
discography includes over 24 solo albums, demonstrating his extraordinary
abilities in Bebop, classical and Latin/Caribbean music.
For
the year 2000, Jazz at Lincoln
Center has commissioned Paquito to write
a piece for their “As of Now” series. The piece was premiered February the
8th at Alice Tully Hall. It
was recorded and broadcasted live on National Public Radio. This piece,
titled “The Pan Americana
Suite” is a jazz oriented piece that combines and makes use of
sounds, rhythms and elements of the music of the Americas.