FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT
YOSVANY TERRY

April 14, 2017 | by Ross Eustis

Yosvany Terry

Here are five things to know about Yosvany Terry, an artist who "has helped redefine Latin jazz as a complex new idiom" (The New York Times).

1. After graduating from Havana’s prestigious National School of Arts, he went on to perform with many of the leading voices of Cuban music, from nueva trova singer Silvio Rodriguez, to pianists Chucho Valdes and Frank Emilio, to the band led by his father, violinist and shekere master Eladio “Don Pancho” Terry Gonzales.
2. After moving to New York in 1999, Terry's been integral in the jazz and contemporary music scenes, playing with Branford Marsalis, Rufus Reid, Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman, Roy Hargrove, Henry Threadgill, Avishai Cohen, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Taj Mahal and Eddie Palmieri's Afro-Caribbean Sextet.
3. In 2015, Terry received the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award, and was hired by Harvard University as Director of Jazz Ensembles and Senior Lecturer of Music.
4. Terry's no stranger to the Bay Area – San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Garden Festival commissioned his “Noches de Parranda” for 12-piece ensemble, and he's regularly served as a faculty member and featured artist at the Stanford Jazz Workshop.
5. Terry's latest album “New Throned King” was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2014, and features music based on cantos and rhythms of the Arará people of the western Cuban province of Matanzas.