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.
Early life and education
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”).
A classmate, Tim Gorman, already an experienced musician at 18, tutored Nazario. The pair soon became best friends. Nazario went on to spend his sophomore year of studies in Salzburg, Austria, where he attended University of Portland classes, as well as the Paris Lodron University. While in Salzburg, he became a member of the Salzburg Drama Gruppe, performing in plays directed by Ilse Lackenbauer. He returned to Portland to graduate, achieving a Bachelor of Music degree in the Composition program.
Early career
After university and a number of odd jobs, he joined a Top-40 covers band and toured the US, playing mostly hotels. He eventually returned to Portland and enrolled in graduate school, supporting himself as waiter and sommelier. A brief stint as sommelier at the Benson Hotel led to Nazario being asked to join a new restaurant in ‘Old Town’, called "Fingers", after its founding chef, Fred Finger. Within a few months, the founding chef departed and Nazario took on the role of chef at the restaurant. The eatery coincidentally received its first positive newspaper review (Willamette Week; Karen Brooks, Gideon Bosker ) a few weeks later. "Fingers" restaurant was later renamed 'The Norton House', after the historic building (owned by Bill Naito) that housed it.
Los Angeles
Nazario moved to Los Angeles with his then wife. He worked as waiter at Jean Leon’s La Scala-Malibu restaurant, but left after a few months. After a short spell as a singer–pianist in a cabaret night club, he worked as chef at Hugo's, in West Hollywood. Here, Nazario created the menu and format for what became an icon in the Los Angeles dining scene. Hugo's was one of the first of the gourmet take-out stores with a bistro-Euro-café restaurant setting.
Nazario left Hugo's after a couple of years to teach food and wine and later helmed Bono's (an Italian restaurant owned by Sonny Bono) on Melrose as guest chef for a short time. He also worked for singer-songwriter Jackson Browne as private chef during preparations for his "Lawyers in Love" album tour.