Dafnis Prieto

DRUMMER | COMPOSER | BANDLEADER | EDUCATOR | MACARTHUR 'GENIUS' FELLOW

The Critics Speak:

“[Prieto's music is] a marvel of acrobatic musicianship”
— The New York Times

“That’s the magic of [Dafnis] Prieto: He has the ability to offer compositions and arrangements that are distinctly him”
— DownBeat

“one of the most multidimensional artists working today"
— JazzTimes

From Cuba, Dafnis Prieto’s revolutionary drumming techniques and compositions have had a powerful impact on the music landscape, nationally and internationally. His various awards and honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, a GRAMMY Award for Back to the Sunset (2018), two additional GRAMMY nominations, two Latin GRAMMY nominations (including Best New Artist in 2007), and the Jazz Journalists Association’s Up & Coming Musician of the Year in 2006.

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 different groups featured in his ten distinctive recordings as a leader: About The Monks, Absolute Quintet, Taking the Soul for a Walk, Si o Si Quartet: Live at Jazz Standard NYC, Dafnis Prieto Proverb Trio, Triangles and Circles, Back to the Sunset, Transparency, Cantar, and 3 Sides of the Coin.

In 2022, Prieto premiered a new work for Latin band and string orchestra — Tentación — performed by People of Earth with the Louisville Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, and Britt Festival Orchestra. He has received commissions, grants, and fellowships from Chamber Music America, Princeton University, Jazz at Lincoln Center, MoMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Jerome Foundation, East Carolina University, Painted Bride Art Center, Meet The Composer, WNYC, New Music USA, Hazard Productions, and Metropole Orkest, among others.

Prieto has performed at many national and international music festivals as a bandleader. Since his 1999 arrival in New York, he has also worked in bands led by Michel Camilo, Chucho and Bebo Valdés, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Chico and Arturo O’Farrill, Dave Samuels and the Caribbean Jazz Project, Jane Bunnett, D.D. Jackson, Edward Simon, Roy Hargrove, Don Byron, and Andrew Hill, among others.

Also a gifted educator, Prieto has conducted numerous master classes, clinics, and workshops around the world. He was on the jazz studies faculty at New York University from 2005 to 2014, and in 2015 joined the faculty of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he directs the esteemed Frost Latin Jazz Orchestra.

In 2016, Prieto published the groundbreaking analytical and instructional drum book, A World of Rhythmic Possibilities. In 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. He is the founder of the independent music company Dafnison Music, established in 2008.

Dafnis Prieto plays and endorses Yamaha Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Latin Percussion, Evans Drumheads, and Vic Firth Sticks.

Honors, Grants & Commissions

  • GRAMMY Award Nomination, Best Latin Jazz Album, Dafnis Prieto Sextet Transparency, 2022

  • Commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra, the Britt Festival Orchestra, New Music USA, Hazard Productions, and People of Earth, for a new work for Latin Band and String Orchestra, ‘Tentación’, 2022

  • Commissioned by the Metropole Orkest, for a new work, ‘Afro-Folk’, 2020

  • Commissioned by the Princeton University Creative Large Ensemble, for a new work, ‘The Happiest Boy in Town’, 2020

  • 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 Painted Bride Art Center, 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