Rita Quintero
Encyclopedia
Rita Quintero is an American
musician
and singer.
to Elena and Reinaldo Quintero.
She began playing the piano
at the age of four, and shortly afterward began singing.
After graduating with honors from the University of Miami
School of Music in 1985, she started working in the local club scene in Miami. Just a short time later she began working as a session singer for recording studios; she has sung backing vocals for artists such as Frank Sinatra
, Jennifer Lopez
, the Tommy Dorsey
Band, Ricky Martin
, Julio Iglesias
, Shakira
, Alejandro Sanz
, Gloria Estefan
, and Céline Dion
. Her backing-vocal discography
has reached 140 platinum and gold recordings. She has also sung advertising jingle
s for radio
and television
.
Quintero is well known in the industry as a vocal coach, teaching singing in English
and Spanish
. Some of her clients include Grace Jones
, Shakira
. Jennifer Lopez
, Robin John Gibb, Chayanne
, Samantha Gibb, Nicolle Chirino, and Manolo Tena.
After working for nearly ten years with the Estefans, her last performance with Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine was on tour with "Evolution". Quintero then went on the road with Shakira's Mongoose Tour. She visited and performed in over twenty Latin America
n and Europe
an countries, and was involved in filming for the Live & Off the Record DVD
. Later that year, Quintero made a stage and video appearance with Gloria Estefan at the "Unwrapped" MGM Las Vegas show in October 2003.
Quintero co-produced the vocals as well as being director of the backing vocals on the English–Spanish Shakira double album Fijación Oral (Sony
2005).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and singer.
Life and career
She was born Rita Marie Quintero on May 11, 1962 in Miami, FloridaMiami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
to Elena and Reinaldo Quintero.
She began playing the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at the age of four, and shortly afterward began singing.
After graduating with honors from the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
School of Music in 1985, she started working in the local club scene in Miami. Just a short time later she began working as a session singer for recording studios; she has sung backing vocals for artists such as Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
, the Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
Band, Ricky Martin
Ricky Martin
Enrique "Ricky" Martín Morales , better known as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican and Spanish pop singer and actor who achieved prominence, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.During his career he has sold more than 60 million album copies worldwide...
, Julio Iglesias
Julio Iglesias
Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva , better known simply as Julio Iglesias, is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million records worldwide in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music Entertainment, he is one of the top 15 best selling music artists in history,...
, Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...
, Alejandro Sanz
Alejandro Sanz
Alejandro Sanz , is a Spanish singer-songwriter and musician. For his work, Sanz has won a total of fifteen Latin Grammy Awards and three Grammy Awards. He has won the Latin Grammy for Album of the Year three times, more than any other artist...
, Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
, and Céline Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
. Her backing-vocal discography
Discography
Discography is the study and listing of the details concerning sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres...
has reached 140 platinum and gold recordings. She has also sung advertising jingle
Jingle
A jingle is a short tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television...
s for radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
Quintero is well known in the industry as a vocal coach, teaching singing in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. Some of her clients include Grace Jones
Grace Jones
Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and...
, Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...
. Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
, Robin John Gibb, Chayanne
Chayanne
Elmer Figueroa Arce , best known under the stage name Chayanne, is a Puerto Rican Latin pop singer and actor. As a solo artist, Chayanne has released 21 solo-albums and sold over 20 million albums worldwide.-Early life:...
, Samantha Gibb, Nicolle Chirino, and Manolo Tena.
After working for nearly ten years with the Estefans, her last performance with Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine was on tour with "Evolution". Quintero then went on the road with Shakira's Mongoose Tour. She visited and performed in over twenty Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an countries, and was involved in filming for the Live & Off the Record DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. Later that year, Quintero made a stage and video appearance with Gloria Estefan at the "Unwrapped" MGM Las Vegas show in October 2003.
Quintero co-produced the vocals as well as being director of the backing vocals on the English–Spanish Shakira double album Fijación Oral (Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
2005).
Discography
- Todo de Ti (written and produced by Rita Quintero and Albert Menendez)
- Make It Real (written and produced by Rita Quintero, Albert Menendez, and Ricardo Suarez)
- Sometimes (written and produced by Rita Quintero and Albert Menendez)
- No Longer Mine (written and produced by Rita Quintero, Albert Menendez, and Ricardo Suarez)
Musical director
- Oscar de la HoyaOscar de la HoyaOscar De La Hoya is a retired American boxer of Mexican descent. Nicknamed "The Golden Boy", De La Hoya won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympic Games shortly after graduating from Garfield High School. De La Hoya comes from a boxing family. His grandfather Vicente, father Joel Sr., and brother...
— Oscar de la Hoya - Lucero — Lucero
- Latin Majik — Latin Like That
- Luis Enrique — Genesis
- Various Artists — Bolero Jazz:Misty
Arranger
- ChayanneChayanneElmer Figueroa Arce , best known under the stage name Chayanne, is a Puerto Rican Latin pop singer and actor. As a solo artist, Chayanne has released 21 solo-albums and sold over 20 million albums worldwide.-Early life:...
— Influencias - Ilan ChesterIlan ChesterIlan Chester is a celebrated Venezuelan singer, keyboardist, arranger and composer. Born in Israel in 1952, of European parents, Ilan emigrated to Venezuela in 1953.- Biography :...
— Terciopelo - MillieMillieMillie may refer to:* A diminutive of the female given names "Emily", "Millicent", "Mildred", "Camilla" or sometimes "Amelia"* millie, an affectionate or pejorative term for a young working-class womanMillie may specifically refer to:...
— Amar Es n Juego - Cristian CastroCristian CastroCristian Castro is a Grammy Award-nominated Mexican pop singer. He is referred to as "Christian Castro" or "Cristian."- Biography :...
— Lo Mejor de Mi - Various Artists — Momentos Romanticos
- Various Artists — Bolero Jazz:Tenderly
Producer
- Shakira–Fijación Oral Vol. 1Fijación Oral Vol. 1Fijación Oral Vol. 1 is the fourth studio album by Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira. It is also the first Spanish language album released by the multilingual songwriter since 1998. The album has won numerous awards worldwide, including five Latin Grammy Awards and a Grammy Award. This album...
(co-producer of lead and background vocal compilation) - Shakira–Laundry ServiceLaundry ServiceSome critics criticized the effectiveness of Shakira's lyrics, claiming that her English skills were too weak for her to write in that language, but nearly all agreed on her unique poetic imagery...
(co-producer of lead and background vocal compilation) - Jazz Bolero Project (Sony)
- Raul MidonRaul MidónRaúl Midón is a singer-songwriter and guitarist from New Mexico, based in New York City. He combines his distinct voice, strumming, beats, and vocal mouth trumpet sounds to create a one-man performance. His unique style shows influence of virtually every musical genre which came before him,...
(demo; Arif Mardin now producing)
DVD appearances
- Shakira: Live & Off The Record (2004)
- Gloria Estefan: Live at Caesar’s Palace (2003)
- Shakira: MTV Unplugged (2002)
- Gloria Estefan: Evolution Tour (1996)