From Cuba, Dafnis Prieto's revolutionary drumming techniques and compositions have had a powerful impact on the Latin and Jazz music scene, nationally and internationally.
Various awards include a 2011 MacArthur Fellowship; a GRAMMY Award and a Latin GRAMMY nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album for Dafnis Prieto Big Band Back to the Sunset in 2018; and in 2007, a GRAMMY nomination as Best Latin Jazz Album for Absolute Quintet, and a Latin GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist. A gifted educator, Prieto was a faculty member of Jazz Studies at NYU from 2005 to 2014, and in 2015 became a faculty member at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
As a composer, Prieto has created music featured on eight acclaimed recordings as a leader: About the Monks, Absolute Quintet, Taking the Soul for a Walk, Sí o Sí Quartet-Live at Jazz Standard NYC, Dafnis Prieto Proverb Trio, Triangles and Circles, Back to the Sunset, and Transparency.
Since his arrival to New York in 1999, Prieto has worked in bands led by Michel Camilo, Chucho Valdés, Bebo Valdés, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Chico and Arturo O'Farrill, Jane Bunnett, Dave Samuels & The Caribbean Jazz Project, and Andrew Hill, among others.
Prieto has published two groundbreaking instructional books, A World of Rhythmic Possibilities and Rhythmic Synchronicity.
Prieto is the founder of the independent music company Dafnison Music.
