New York, NY (Top40 Charts / South Florida JAZZ) South Florida JAZZ, founded in 1991 and celebrating its 20th anniversary, kicks off its 2011-12 concert season on Saturday, November 19, 2011 at 8:00 p.m. with the 10-time Grammy-awarded and
National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master Paquito D'Rivera. The dazzling clarinet and saxophone virtuoso will perform with his touring quintet, in addition to a special guest appearance by South Florida piano phenom from the New World School of the Arts, Antonio Madruga. The venue is the Rose & Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center, 3100 Ray Ferrero, Jr. Blvd on the Nova Southeastern University campus in Davie.
Platinum (VIP) ticket holders will be treated to a special celebratory reception commencing at 6:00 p.m. in the DeSantis Building's Courtyard Atrium, across the plaza from the Miniaci Performing Arts Center. Along with great food, guests will be treated to a live jazz art performance by Miami's superb pop impressionist artist Dave LEBO Le Batard, creating an improvisational painting set to music. The New World School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble also will perform at the reception.
Tickets are $150 Platinum (VIP), $50 and $40 and can be purchased from the Broward Center box office at 954-462-0222; toll-free at 877-311-SHOW; and online at https://www.southfloridajazz.org or https://browardcenter.org.
For more details, please see below:
Paquito D'Rivera
"... Mr. D'Rivera, a gifted saxophonist and clarinetist, has become the man to call if you want a concert-hall presentation of Pan-Latin music. All in rich Carnegie Hall-style arrangements ... Mr. D'Rivera is a formidable musician, and in his clarinet playing, with a lovely, clear, low register and never a squeaked high note. He is at his best ...." -- Ben Ratliff, New York Times
Born in Cuba on June 4, 1948, Paquito D'Rivera began his career as a child prodigy initially on the clarinet and later the alto saxophone. He was a restless and relentless musical genius during his teen years, motivated to collaborate in a variety of innovative ensembles. He teamed with pianist
Chucho Valdez at 16 and at age 19, contemporaneously with playing the clarinet and saxophone in the Cuban
National Symphony Orchestra, Paquito
Chucho Valdez, and guitarist
Emilio Morales founded the state-sponsored Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, an amalgam of Cuban big band music, jazz and European classical music. The orchestra premiered several works by notable Cuban composers in the late 1960s. However, within a few years, Paquito and
Chucho enthusiastically created the groundbreaking musical ensemble Irakere, with its explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical, and traditional Cuban music. Irakere toured extensively throughout
America and Europe, won several Grammy nominations (1979, 1980) and a Grammy (1979). By 1980, Paquito was off to New York and stardom.
Paquito D'Rivera's first recognition as a solo artist by NARAS (the Grammy Awards) came in 1996 with the highly acclaimed recording Portraits of Cuba. Since then, Mr. D'Rivera has received much recognition as an artist and composer, including two Grammy nominations for his most recent release, Jazz-ClaZZ. In all, Paquito has collected nine Grammy Awards and is the only artist to win Grammys in the Jazz, Latin Jazz and Classical music categories.
Wynton Marsalis has also won Grammys in Jazz and Classical music. In 2005, he was named a
National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master and a plethora of recognition awards in the jazz, Latin jazz, and classical realms. While best known to jazz enthusiasts for his manifest accomplishments in that genre, Paquito, equally at home with Monk and Mozart, has an impressive resume of solo appearances with symphony orchestras all over the world. He also has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the esteemed Berklee College of
Music in Boston, the University of Pennsylvania, and City University of New York Graduate Center.
Funding for this organization is provided in part by the Broward County Board of Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Division, the Bernie Bercuson Trust, the Schnurmacher Foundation, JAZZIZ Magazine, Whole Food Markets, FedEx, and Citrix Corporation.
https://www.southfloridajazz.org