Dafnis Prieto, Kokayi & Jason Lindner

From Cuba, Dafnis Prieto’s revolutionary drumming techniques and compositions have had a powerful impact on the music landscape, nationally and internationally. His various awards and honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, a GRAMMY Award for Back to the Sunset (2018), two additional GRAMMY nominations, two Latin GRAMMY nominations (including Best New Artist in 2007), and the Jazz Journalists Association’s Up & Coming Musician of the Year in 2006.

Prieto's compositions are featured on his ten distinctive recordings as a leader: About the Monks, Absolute Quintet, Taking the Soul for a Walk, Si o Si Quartet: Live at Jazz Standard NYC, Dafnis Prieto Proverb Trio, Triangles and Circles, Back to the Sunset, Transparency, Cantar, and 3 Sides of the Coin.

Prieto has performed at many national and international venues as a bandleader. Since his 1999 arrival in New York, he has also worked in bands led by Michel Camilo, Chucho and Bebo Valdés, Henry Threadgill, Eddie Palmieri, Chico and Arturo O’Farrill, Jane Bunnett, and Dave Samuels and the Caribbean Jazz Project, among others.

Also a gifted educator, Prieto is on the faculty of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he directs the esteemed Frost Latin Jazz Orchestra. Prieto is the author of two groundbreaking books, including A World of Rhythmic Possibilities (2016) and Rhythmic Synchronicity (2020). He is the founder of the independent music company Dafnison Music, established in 2008.