Phoenix » Calendar » Nachito Herrera at Musical Instrument Museum
Nachito Herrera at Musical Instrument Museum
Courtesy of Candelaria Alvarado | Posted on December 28, 2014
Where
Musical Instrument Museum
4725 E. Mayo Boulevard
Phoenix, AZ
Map
480.478.6000
When
Sat, January 3, 2015
7:30 pm
Save the date
Musicians
About
Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera arrives at MIM on the heels of receiving an American Heritage Award from the American Immigration Council, one of three musicians in 2012 (along with Australian Tommy Emmanuel and South Korean Yura Lee) to receive this prestigious prize. (The last Latin musician to be receive the honor was Carlos Santana.)
Herrera stunned Cuban audiences at the age of twelve when he performed Rachmaninoff’s Concerto no. 2 with the Havana Symphony Orchestra. When he was fifteen, Rubén González (of Buena Vista Social Club and Afro-Cuban All Stars fame) took him under his wing to teach him traditional Cuban styles. In the late 1990s, Herrera joined the famed Cuban Orquesta Cubanismo as its pianist, musical director, and arranger. With its worldwide appeal, Cubanismo performed at many of the world’s finest concert halls and prestigious festivals throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, Central and South America, and the United States. After hearing Herrera’s first U.S. album, jazz critic and Playboy Guide to Jazz author Neil Tesser wrote that his “virtuosic technique and phantasmagorical fire . . . vaults him into the upper echelon—a trinity comprising Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and now Nachito Herrera.” A musical favorite of Rubén González, Herrera recently toured North American concert halls, filling the legendary González’s piano chair in the Afro-Cuban All Stars. Herrera triggered more than his share of thunderous ovations on the tour....