Fernando Otero

Fernando Otero was born in Buenos Aires to an actor and an opera singer and was already an insatiable musical polyglot, multi-instrumentalist and fledgling studio innovator by age ten. Careening between rigorous classical disciplines and the freewheeling improvisations typical of jazz and his homeland’s native tango, his most indelible influences included Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók, who also incorporated folklore into their music, and South American icons like fellow Argentinean Astor Piazzola, Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti, and Hugo Fattoruso of Uruguay. The legendary Quincy Jones is a fan (they were introduced by actress Salma Hayak), and Otero numbers Eddie Gomez, Dave Valentin and Dave Grusin among his collaborators. Lately, he’s been sitting in with Arturo O’Farrill’s Jazz Orchestra during their Sunday night residency at New York City’s Birdland, and performing his own compositions with the ensemble at Lincoln Center and Symphony Space. He has also joined clarinetist Paquito d’Rivera live at Birdland, The Blue Note and the Caramoor Festival and played on his GRAMMY®-winning CD, Funk Tango. The always-adventurous Kronos Quartet commissioned a piece from Otero called “The Cherry Tree,” which was premiered at Carnegie Hall in February 2008.