DESCRIPTION:
Fernando Otero - MANIFESTACION - album PRIMA DONNA
Premiered at the Lincoln Center, New York.

Otero has written music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, string quartet, choir, and solo instruments like 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; flutist 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