Pete Cafarella is an acclaimed American musical artist, writer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist known for his genre-fluid work across electronic, avant-garde, indie, and pop music.
A classical-and-jazz-trained pianist, Pete’s early output spans album releases on legendary punk labels Dischord, Touch and Go, Kill Rock Stars, and DFA. After attending Wesleyan University and RISD, he worked with MacArthur Fellow avant-garde pioneer Anthony Braxton, and performed on Echoes by The Rapture — Pitchfork’s Album of the Year. As frontman of his band Shy Child, the first American band to perform at Wembley Stadium, he played alongside giants like Paul McCartney, Björk, Muse, and Iggy Pop on stages such as the Sydney Opera House, O2 Arena, and the Royal Albert Hall.
Beyond his own projects, Pete’s collaborations include producing, performing, composing, music directing, and developing new instruments with an eclectic spectrum of peers like Guster, Passion Pit, Coco & Clair Clair, Paul Epworth, SYML, and Vacations. He just finished co-producing Genevieve Stokes’s upcoming LP with Tony Berg and Fiona Stocks-Lyons. Additionally, Pete works in scoring film, multimedia, and art exhibitions worldwide. See Selected Work.