Rafael Nazario
| Rafael Antonio Nazario | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 30, 1952 |
| Nationality | Puerto Rican |
| Occupation | Pianist, composer |
Rafael Antonio Nazario (also Raphael, or "Raf Nazario"; born July 30, 1952) is a Puerto Rican-born pianist, composer and arranger and actor. He has had a parallel career as chef, author and occasional wine writer.
Nazario's recordings range from Latin music to instrumental compositions, pop songs in English, classical-oriented piano and orchestral works. His debut album, Patria Añorada (1999, reissued 2004), contains songs in a variety of Hispanic-American styles and features lyrical and jazz-influenced arrangements. Nazario's music includes idioms and vernacular rooted in Puerto Rico's Jíbaro culture, evoking the nueva canción and nueva trova styles of Hispanic-American music.
Nazario was born in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of Elvira Piñeiro Prieto and Rafael Nazario Cardona, a newspaper pressman. Rafael Sr was the eldest of 18, and according to the family's oral history, their father, Francisco Nazario was one of the founders—along with Romualdo Real—of the Puerto Rico Ilustrado magazine, and later the newspaper El Mundo (Puerto Rico). His mother was of Spanish (Canarian), Portuguese and Dutch ancestry. His maternal grandfather, Amador Piñeiro, was one of the last train station superintendents on the island. Rafael Sr. moved the family to Costa Rica when Nazario was a few months old and years later settled in Jersey City, New Jersey, where Nazario attended St Aedens School. They returned to Puerto Rico when Nazario was nine years of age. He eventually studied at the De La Salle (Christian Brothers) School in the suburban city of Bayamón, where they lived. It was at La Salle that Nazario first became involved in theatre, under the direction of Luis J. Cruz.
Upon graduation from high school, Nazario left the island to study piano and music composition, living temporarily with his godparents in Miami, Florida. As he did not play an instrument and had never taken a music lesson, he did not win a place at any colleges he approached. However, an admission-board member at the University of Notre Dame admired the young man's initiative. Rev. Michael J. Heppen, C.S.C., invited Nazario to apply to the University of Portland, where Rev. Heppen was director of admissions. University of Portland's Dean of Music, Philippe de la Mare, was in France that summer, visiting his former teacher,Nadia Boulanger. In this manner, Nazario gained entry to the University of Portland School of Music even though his repertoire consisted of less than a minute of Beethoven's Sonata No. 14 (“Moonlight Sonata”).
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