Sanz Partnering with Javier Limon to Develop Music Talent Contest “Son of Songs”

Alejandro Sanz is getting real competitive…

The 48-year-oldSpanish singer-songwriter, a 17-time Latin Grammy winner and three-time Grammy winner, is partnering with music producer Javier Limon on an original primetime entertainment format, Son of Songs.

Alejandro Sanz

A music talent contest that celebrates the vast range of styles open to modern artists, Son of Songs will be produced by Mediapro, Gazul Producciones, which represents Sanz, and the Limon’s U.S.-based record production label, Casa Limon.

Son of Songs also marks one of the earliest formats to emerge from Mediapro as its drives into upscale TV production.

With Sanz also taking an executive producer credit, Son of Songs’ format features eight young talents, drawn from different styles of music, who pay tribute to a guest star performing their greatest hits in different styles. The format is based on the idea that the musical idea of any song can be interpreted in any style: Jazz, blues, hip-hop, Latin, dance, or flamenco, Mediapro said in a statement.

Now in development, but with first images and content recorded in Boston by young musicians at its prestigious Berklee College of Music, Son of Songs yokes the talents and channels the music passions of two key Spanish music industry figures who have successfully crossed over to the U.S, and Latin America.

Selling 25 million albums to date, Sanz broke through internationally with 1997’s Mas. Including “Corazón Partío,” it sold two-million-plus copies in Spain, making it the most-sold album in history. It also vindicated a style which, however much based on romantic ballads laced with flamenco tropes, has seen experimented throughout Sanz’s career with fusions of jazz, R & B, soul and pop – an inclusiveness which has led Sanz to record with multiple artists from Alicia Keys to Shakira, Michael Jackson to The Corrs.

The winner of 10 Grammys, Limon’s Casa Limon has presented Lagrimas Negras and Buika, and produced concerts, documentaries and television programs. A producer, composer and performer, the key to his work has been its diversity, in both the geographic origin and styles of the great artists he has collaborated with, from Paco de Lucia, Enrique Morente and Joaquin Sabina in Spain to Cuba’s Bebo Valdés, Mexico’s Chavela Vargas, the U.K.’s Nick Lowe and India’s Anoushka Shankar. He also serves as artistic director at the Berklee College of Music.

Iberia Airlines Sponsors Paco de Lucia Scholarship at Berklee College of Music

Paco de Lucia’s legacy will live on…

Iberia Airlines is sponsoring a new scholarship in the name of the late Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer and producer at Berklee College of Music, open to guitarists from Spain or Latin America.

Paco de Lucia

According to Berklee, Juan Cabezon Oppici of Madrid is the winner of the 2016 scholarship, which covers tuition, travel and board for a five-week summer program.

The Spanish airline will fund the scholarship in 2017 and “would like to establish this scholarship as a long-term offer for young talented guitarists.”

The new scholarship was announced at the same time as the first screening, in Madrid, of a new Iberia-funded documentary that features the last guitar owned by De Lucia in the starring role. In La Guitarra Vuela, the Spanish guitar master’s instrument, known as La Maestro, literally flies as a passenger on flights to nine countries — courtesy of Iberia.

 

The guitar reached the hands of over a dozen musicians, including Brazilian great Caetano Veloso, flamenco guitarist Tomatito and Portuguese fado singer Mariza.

 

The documentary was directed by Javier Limón and Jorge Martinez.

Iberia will screen La Guitarra Vuela on its flights starting July 1.