Diego Piñera

Born in 1981 in Montevideo, Diego Piñera is a German-Uruguayan drummer and composer whose career links Uruguay, Cuba, the United States and Germany. Raised at an early age in a family of musicians, he studied drums as a child with Osvaldo Fattoruso, continued his training in Havana and then at the Berklee College of Music before settling in Germany, where he notably spent time in Leipzig. Diego Piñera develops a contemporary jazz marked by irregular metrics, polyrythmic play and writing that crosses Latin American heritage, post-bop language and harmonic exploration. After a first album recorded in trio, Buscando (2005), he leads various projects under his name, in trio, quartet or expanded formations, and also works as a sideman on the European jazz scene. His discography includes Reflexiones (2011), Strange Ways (2014), My Picture (2016), Despertando (2017), the duo Elusive Beauty with Sebastian Schunke (2018), then Odd Wisdom (2021) and Celeste with Peter Ehwald (2023). In his compositions as in his drumming, Diego Piñera articulates rhythmic precision, ensemble flexibility and a vocabulary nourished as much by Afro-Latin music as by modern jazz.