Fernando Otero

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Fernando Otero

Fernando Otero performing at (Le) Poisson Rouge, New York City, 2012
Background information
Birth name Fernando Otero
Genres Latin jazz, tango, contemporary classical
Occupations Composer, pianist
Instruments piano

Fernando Otero is an Argentine composer and pianist,[1] currently residing in New York City. His first contact with music was receiving vocal lessons from his mother — he started taking piano lessons at five. He also studied the guitar, drums, accordion, and melodica, instruments he plays occasionally. A classically trained and virtuoso pianist, Otero studied classical music since childhood. He has since developed his own style which has elements of jazz, tango, and contemporary classical music.

Biography

Otero found his voice as writer, musician and bandleader when, at the urging of one of his music teachers, he began to incorporate the indigenous sounds of his native Buenos Aires into his work, as he did in his Nonesuch debut Pagina de Buenos Aires in 2008.

He has collaborated with one-time Bill Evans sideman Eddie Gomez, flautist Dave Valentin and pianist/film composer Dave Grusin, among others, and he sat in with Arturo O'Farrill’s Jazz Orchestra during their Sunday night residency at New York City’s Birdland, performing his compositions with this large jazz ensemble also at Lincoln Center and Symphony Space. He also joined clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera on stage, at Birdland, Blue Note, and the Caramoor Festival, and in the studio for the recording of the Grammy-Award winning album Funk Tango.[2]

He has written music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, string quartet, and choral ensembles, as well as for solo instruments such as piano, violin and cello. Many of his compositions are commissioned and premiered by performers such as the Kronos Quartet, the Imani Winds ensemble, the pianist Krisztina Wajsza, the cellist Inbal Segev, the Ahn Trio, and the pianist Yana Reznik (in an album for two pianos performed with Otero himself).[3]

Musical career

In 2005 Eddie Gomez introduced Otero as one of the great pianist of the new generation.[4]

In January 2008 Otero released the album "Pagina de Buenos Aires" from Nonesuch Records. Critics describe the album as "[u]rbane and exotic, surreal and streetwise, and alive with invention and emotion".[5]

In February 2008 the Kronos Quartet premiered "El Cherezo" ("The Cherry Tree") at Carnegie Hall, a one-movement work for string quartet commissioned from Otero that "blended tango-infused lyrical interludes into a sometimes dissonant canvas."[6]

In 2010 he received the Latin Grammy Award for Best Classical Album for Vital.[7]

Otero's most recent album is Romance (Soundbrush Records), released in 2013, which has been described as "an exhilarating surprise — a collection of beautifully crafted short pieces that are both jazzy and lyrical, brought to life by a superb ensemble of instrumentalists and singers".[8]

Musical style

Otero's music has been described to "vibrantly [summon] tango ancestors while also acknowledging Bartok and Prokofiev", and his playing style has been described to "bore traces of jazz pianists like Bill Evans and Don Pullen. The resulting synthesis proposed bold new directions for a venerable tradition."[9]

In addition, "Otero is a seriously talented pianist, and his orchestrations are equal parts Bernard Hermann and Charlie Parker. That is, they alternate between jagged suspenseful crescendos and long, sinuous melodies. This music bounds out of the speakers and leaps into every corner of the room at once, exhilarating but also bewildering — it's not tango, jazz, or classical, but some brand-new combination of all three."[10]

Neely Bruce, Professor of Music at Wesleyan, when describing Otero's music, says, "It’s exciting, it’s full of variety, it’s very dramatic, very rhythmically complex; it sounds like tango on steroids."[11]

Otero's study of drums becomes evident in pieces like Preludio 4, described as "a whirlwind piano solo that showcases Otero’s formidable keyboard prowess. (The earlier Pagina de Buenos Aires album featured his 'Preludio 19)."[12]

Discography

  • Chamber Music (2000)
  • Siderata (2001)
  • Plan (2003)
  • Revision (2005)
  • Pagina de Buenos Aires (Nonesuch, 2007)
  • Expansion (2008)
  • Material (Warner Bros. 2009)
  • Vital (World Village, 2010)
  • Romance (Soundbrush Records, 2013)

References

  1. ↑ Nate Knaebel (Jan-Feb 2008). "Fernando Otero: Pagina de Buenos Aires (review)". CMJ New Music Monthly. p. 45. Retrieved 24 August 2011. 
  2. ↑ Michael Hill. "About Fernando Otero". Nonesuch Records. Retrieved 2013-05-13. 
  3. ↑ Frank J. Oteri (2013-03-12). "Sounds Heard: Fernando Otero —Romance". NewMusicBox. 
  4. ↑ "Eddie Gomez with Mark Kramer introduces 3 Pianists of the Next Generation at the Iridium, July 15, 16 and 17". All About Jazz. July 15, 2005. 
  5. ↑ Tim Nelson (January 25, 2008). "BBC Music Review: Fernando Otero - Pagina de Buenos Aires". 
  6. ↑ Vivian Schweitzer (February 25, 2008). "Music Review: Kronos Quartet - Premieres Range in Palette From Balkans to Argentina". The New York Times. 
  7. ↑ "Fernando Otero Wins Latin Grammy Award". Nonesuch Records. November 15, 2010. 
  8. ↑ Brian Kellow (February 2013). "A Trip to the Argentine". Opera News. 
  9. ↑ Steve Smith (February 7, 2012). "Music Review: Marathon With Room for Art Songs and Electronics". The New York Times. 
  10. ↑ Phil Freeman (March 2008). Jazziz Magazine. 
  11. ↑ Andrew Chatfield (April 13, 2012). "'Tango on Steroids': Virtuoso Pianist Graces Wesleyan Stage". Patch. 
  12. ↑ Frank J. Oteri (March 12, 2013). "Sounds Heard: Fernando Otero—Romance". NewMusicBox. 

External links

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