We recently connected with Dafnis Prieto and have shared our conversation below.

Dafnis, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on lately is my new album ‘CANTAR’, which means “to sing” in Spanish. This album is my ninth album as a leader but it’s the first to be fully focused on songwriting. I decided to reveal a side of myself that was not out there yet. So I gather some of the songs that I’ve been writing through the years, and invited the great singer from Brazil ‘Luciana Souza’ to sing on all of the songs. In the album you can hear songs in English, Spanish and Portuguese. This collaboration with Luciana ended up been a great experience and as a result it became a wonderful and meaningful project. The album was released under my own record company Dafnison Music, and it was produced by my long time producer Eric Oberstein and in collaboration with the great producer Larry Klein. We went through different challenges in the making, we recorded in New York City, but at that time we were still in the middle of the Covid pandemic, so we had to take care of so many details, and ourselves, not only while traveling, but also following the Covid protocols in the studio during rehearsals and the actual recording section. I remember that the first rehearsals that I did with Luciana were meetings online over zoom, and it took me about a year to write the music and the arrangements. So, a year later when we went to the studio we rehears for a couple of days and it only took two days to record the whole album. We ended having a beautiful recording section and we also had the fortune to have an amazing band with great musicians, like: Peter Apfelbaum on sax, keyboards, and percussion; Martin Bejerano on piano; Matt Brewer on bass, and of course I played the drums. There are many things in the album that are meaningful, from the story telling of the songs, the music, the playing, and the whole team behind this project, including the sound engineers Andy Taub, Mike Marciano, and Bernie Grundman who made it sounding so good, and some very special people that help us make the album a reality like Harsha Murthy, Lindsay Evans, Rebecca Henderson, Joe & Jim Morone who were the executive producers of the album.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

In 1999 and at the age of 25 I arrived in New York City, with one bag and a pair of drum sticks. I was excited but also overwhelmed by the city (the speed, the amount of people and the noise). I had a lot of dreams, but at times I was also scared of how this all was going to turn out. It was a big change, coming from Cuba via Spain and Canada were already big changes, but New York was still very intriguing, challenging and welcoming all at ones. But, soon I started playing in the city and learning my way around. I started meeting with other musicians and artists, so it felt like we were all part of something bigger, part of a community of people committed to music and all art forms. I started playing with great musicians, and touring abroad, and also started teaching at NYU. Not long after I started writing my own music and playing around with my bands too. I released my first album in 2005 “About the Monks”, and with my third album I already created my own record company where I have released all of my albums and have also published two of my books “A World of Rhythmic Possibilities” and “Rhythmic Synchronicity”. You can go now to my website and see so many videos, listen to many tracks and even learn from the lessons and classes that are posted there. In the mid of these years I’ve also received some awards from organizations such as the MacArthur Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Grammys, and others. Besides writing and playing music I have also devoted some time to education, teaching for 10 years at NYU and currently at Frost School of Music at University of Miami.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist has different layers, at first I think in the realization of any idea, I also think in the enjoyment one can feel throughout the process of creation, which is fascinating. But I also think more in the wonderful and powerful possibility of connecting with other people, connecting in different levels, whether it is emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think it is very important to educate young people to appreciate good art and the history of it, specially in the schools, whether it is through music, visual art, dance, etc… When you have people educated that can understand and appreciate an art form with quality, then you have a much better creative ecosystem, you’ll ended up creating a society with people that will validate and support more what artist do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dafnisonmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dafnisprieto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dafnisprieto
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dafnisprieto
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dafnison