Paquito D Rivera

An extraordinarily versatile musician, composer, former child prodigy and Grammy® Award winner, Paquito D’Rivera’s 50- year musical career has crossed the boundaries of diverse styles of jazz, classical, and Latin music. 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. A founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, D’Rivera directed that group for two years while also playing both clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. D’Rivera was also a founding member and co-director of the innovative musical ensemble Irakere, which received several Grammy® Award nominations in 1979 and 1980, and won a Grammy® Award in 1979.In 2007, D’Riverawon his9th Grammy® Award for "Best Latin Jazz Album" with Funk Tango, and in 2008, for the third year in a row, he was voted “Clarinetist of the Year” in DownBeat Magazine reader’s poll. D’Rivera has been a featured soloist with the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the Costa Rica National Symphony, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, and the St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, among others. Published by Boosey & Hawkes, D’Rivera has received widespread recognition as a composer, receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition in 2007 as well as an appointment as composer-in-residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in 2007-08. He is the author of two books, My Sax Life and Oh, La Habana. He is the recipient of prestigious awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award and the National Medal of the Arts in 2005; the Jazz Journalist Association’s Clarinetist of the Year in 2004 and 2006; and the Frankfurt Music Prize, the International Association for Jazz Education President’s Award, and the Kennedy Center Living Jazz Legend Gold Medal in 2008. D’Rivera is currently the Artistic Director of the Festival Internacional de Jazz de Punta Del Este in Uruguay and of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C.