Born in Havana Cuba,  Grammy Award winner D’Rivera was a child prodigy who was playing the clarinet and the saxophone and performing with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra at a very early age. He founded the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna  and Irakere  whose explosive mixture of Jazz, Rock, Classical and traditional Cuban music had never been heard before, and in 1979,  Irakere  was awarded  the  Grammy as Best Latin Jazz Ensemble.  In 1981, Mr. D’Rivera sought asylum in the United States, leaving his homeland.  His numerous recordings have received rave reviews and hit the top of the Jazz charts,  With his ensembles;Triangulo, devoted exclusively to chamber music, the Paquito D’Rivera Big Band and the Paquito D’Rivera Quintet he tours throughout the world.  His appearances in classical venues include solo performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Lukes, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, the Florida Philharmonic, the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra and the Simón Bolivar Symphonic Orchestra among others.

With the Cuban National Symphony he premiered and or recorded several works by the foremost contemporary Cuban composer Leo Brower. In 1991 Mr.  D’Rivera received the Lifetime Achievement Award  for his contribution to Latin music, along with Dizzy Gillespie and Gato Barbieri, and in 1997 became recipient of his second Grammy Award for  the highly acclaimed, “Portraits of Cuba.”

Since his defection from Cuba, Paquito D’Rivera has taken command  of his role as a cross-cultural ambassador, creating  and promoting a multinational style that moves from Bebop to Latin to Mozart.  Throughout his career in the United States,  Europe, Asia, and Latin America D’Rivera’s works have received rave reviews from the critics.

D’Rivera is becoming increasingly well-known for his compositions in addition to his extraordinary performing career.  His music shows his versatility and wide-ranging influences, from Afro-Cuban ritual melodies to the music of the dance halls, through rhythms encountered in his wide-ranging travels to his origins as a “classical” performer. 

In this quest to bring the Latin-American repertoire into the forefront of the so-called “classical arena” Paquito D’Rivera has created, favored and promoted with success all types of musical  compositions with elements from “south of the border”.  The Chamber Orchestra Werneck  (based in Germany) presented a concert series titled Paquito Meets Mozart featuring Paquito’s chamber compositions, alongside those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which culminated in a piece written by Paquito inspired on the 2nd movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto,  titled  “Adagio”.

...................... For this concert, Paquito D'Rivera played almost exclusively the Clarinet. The first half of the program was dedicated almost exclusively to the music of Mozart. The first piece performed by D'Rivera as soloist with the Werneck Schloss Chamber Orchestra was the Clarinet Concerto in A Major KV 622. The orchestra as well as the soloist executed the work with perfect intonation and precise interpretation. At no time came the impression that two different musical worlds were colliding. The concert was an offering of excellence by virtue of the soloist and the orchestra, led by Ulf Klautsenitzer. With a focused tone and intonation he effortlessly graced through the various registers unwavering. By:Peter Linhart Main - Echo Aschaffenburg Kultur, Montag, 28.Juni 1999

His “Rivers”, a Poetic suite, was premiered Sept. 25th, 1998 for the 25th anniversary Opening Concert of the New Jersey Chamber Music Society . Other commissions have included Montreal’s Gerald Danovich Saxophone  Quartet, for which he wrote the acclaimed“ New York Suite”.   His suite “Aires Tropicales  commissioned by The Aspen Wind Quintet is so popular that it has been arranged for many different chambers ensembles and is already  part of the repertoire of numerous important wind quintets.

On December 19th, 1999, The American Saxophone Quartet  premiered “Quasi An Arabesque”  for saxophone quartet and clarinet at the Merkin Concert Hall.   Composed with his son Franco, (a fine composer/clarinetist in his own right), the commissioned work features Paquito on Clarinet.  The Panamericana Suite   commissioned  for  the  Jazz @ Lincoln Center’s “As of Now” series at Alice Tully Hall will be premiered on February 10th and 12th, 2000  It will also  be recorded and  broadcast on National Public Radio at a future date.  On April 9th, 2000  a yet untitled commission will be premiered at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.   Other commissions for the year 2000 include works for the Turtle Island String Quartet and The Ying Quartet.  

Presently Mr. D’Rivera is Artist in Residence at NJPAC and Artistic Director for Jazz Programing of the New Jersey Chamber Music Society; sits on the Board of Directors of Chamber Music International,  as well as the board of Chamber Music America, and the New York  Virtuosi Orchestra .  For the last five years Mr. D’Rivera has been  Artistic Director of the famous world-class “Festival Internacional de Jazz en el Tambo”  now in it’s fifth year in Punta del Este, Uruguay.  This year Mr. D’Rivera’s guests included such luminaries as McCoy Tyner, James Moody, and Chico Hamilton.

A gifted  writer, Mr.D’Rivera’s “My Sax Life” is  co-published by the prestigious Editorial Plaza Mayor Publishing House, based in Puerto Rico, with a  magnificent prologue by the Oscar winning film director Fernando Trueba, and also by the Spanish literary house Seix Barral with a prologue by the distinguished author Guillermo Cabrera Infante.  Mr. D’Rivera’s  novel “En  Tus Brazos Morenos” will soon follow.  On June 8th, 1999 Mr. D’Rivera received a special honorary award by Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, (for its 500 years celebration ) recognizing  his contribution to the arts, his humane qualities, and in  defense of the rights and liberty of artists.  Then  on July 14th, 1999 Paquito performed at the Kennedy Center as featured guest artist in the historical “Americanos” concert, hosted by James Olmos, already an acclaimed success after several national broadcasts.

Paquito’s discography includes over 24 solo albums, demonstrating his extraordinary  abilities in Bebop, classical and Latin/Caribbean music.

For the year 2000,  Jazz at Lincoln Center has commissioned Paquito to write  a piece for their “As of Now” series. The piece was premiered February the 8th at Alice Tully Hall. It was recorded and broadcasted live on National Public Radio. This piece, titled “The Pan Americana Suite” is a jazz oriented piece that combines and makes use of sounds, rhythms and elements of the music of the Americas.