Biography. Video in english

 

Prima Donna is a new studio album by Grammy Winner, Composer & Pianist Fernando Otero, released in 2014. Based in New York, Otero has found correspondingly diverse collaborators, among them Paquito D’Rivera, the Kronos Quartet, Eddie Gómez, and Quincy Jones. Otero is regarded by many music critics as a classically trained and virtuoso pianist, and also as a composer  who has developed his own style, with elements of classical contemporary music and  improvisational jazz while using theTango as a starting point. Otero has written music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, string quartet, choir, and solo instruments as piano, violin and cello, being many of his compositions commissioned and premiered by performers like the Kronos Quartet , with the premiere of "The Cherry Tree"in Carnegie Hall in February 2008- and the Imani Winds ensemble.He has performed with legendary bassist Eddie Gomez , who in 2005 introduced Otero as one of the pianists of the new generation; flautist Dave Valentin, the Arturo O'Farrill Jazz Orchestra, and was featured in the Grammy Award-winning album Funk Tango by reed maestro Paquito D'Rivera. Reviewing Fernando Otero's performance at New York's Symphony Space in February 2012, Steve Smith wrote in The New York Times: "Mr. Otero's writing vibrantly summoned tango ancestors while also acknowledging Bartok and Prokofiev. His brilliant playing bore traces of jazz pianists like Bill Evans and Don Pullen. His most indelible influences included Igor Stravinsky , Béla Bartók and Bill Evans , plus those who also incorporated folklore into their music, South American icons like fellow Argentine Astor Piazzolla, Brazilian composers Egberto Gismonti and Hermeto Pascoal, and Hugo Fattoruso of Uruguay. Musicians like Keith Jarret, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays,Joe Zawinul and Ralph Towner were also relevant in Otero's musical education. ..." Mr. Danielson and Mr. Otero locked in tightly, playing a compact melody in sync and then spiraling outward to set up some counterpoint. During one passage in the piece, and on a brisk subsequent composition, there was a faint echo of the dynamic that existed between the pianist Chick Corea and the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty some 30 years ago…" Nate Chinen, New York Times, February 2008