User:Dcortaza

Dani Cortaza has three decades of artistic life to his credit. This talented musician specializes in Brazilian, Latin jazz and South America folklore, in both nylon and electric jazz guitar. In addition, he also performs, composes and arranges Latin American folk music.

He has appeared in many prestigious concert venues around the world, namely in Japan, Europe, South America and the United States.

After two decades of highly acclaimed worldwide performances with a variety of musicians and bands, a special Kennedy Center concert brought this Argentinean native to Washington DC in 2002, where he now resides. Dani is the founder of two dynamic musical groups specializing in Latin jazz and Brazilian music, which he directs.

He has appeared in concert with flautist Nestor Torres and jazz pianist Dick Morgan, and with his own band at Blues Alley, the Smithsonian Jazz Cafe, Silver Spring Jazz Festival and Gala Theater, just to name a few venues.

He was the recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s “Artistic Excellence” Award in 2007. In the same year, his CD Expressions (2007) received a WAMMIE nomination for Best Jazz Album.

One of his present projects includes creating new compositions and arrangements of South American folk music combined with jazz elements. Based on this work, in August, 2012, he received a grant from FONDEC (Paraguayan National Endowment for the Arts) to produce his most recently released CD Together/Oñondivé, Cortaza, which includes some of his own compositions and arrangements of Paraguayan and South American folk music combined with elements of jazz.

The CD was recorded and mixed in Cortaza’s own professional studio InTune Recording based in Adelphi, MD.

In September, 2014, Dani and his group were invited by the US State Department to represent the United States at the Asunción Jazz Festival in Paraguay, including a tour of several cities. During the same trip, the group played the release concerts for the CD Together/Oñondivé in Asunción and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Currently, Cortaza is Artistic and Executive Director of the DC LATIN JAZZ FESTIVAL Project, which will take place annually in Washington DC, featuring some of the greatest local and international Latin Jazz artists.

Dani Cortaza is a Master Guitarist plain and simple. He has earned that title. Once you see him live it will be evident when his fingers begin to fly!!