Tag Archives: Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation

Carlos Named the Latin Recording Academy’s 2015 Person of the Year

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Roberto Carlos is a person of major interest this year…

The 74-year-old Brazilian singer and composer will be honored as the 2015 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year.

Roberto Carlos

Carlos, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Billboard Latin Music Awards in April and is celebrating five decades of recording in Spanish, is the top-selling Brazilian and Latin American act of all time.

He’ll be honored the eve of the Latin Grammys at a star-studded tribute concert Wednesday, November18, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. Proceeds from the gala will benefit the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation.

Born in in the Southern municipality of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim to a watchmaker and a seamstress, Carlos began singing and taking music lessons at an early age. At 17, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and began singing nightly in clubs, devoting himself to the rock n’ roll of the day. By the early 1960s, signed to Columbia and aided by the TV show and musical movement Jovem Guarda (Young Guard), Carlos became a teen idol and began writing with his childhood friend and former bandmate Erasmo Carlos, still his main writing partner to this day. Instead of opting for bossa nova, the sophisticated Brazilian export for which his smooth, entreating voice is particularly well-suited for, they went for romantic pop, penning some of the most enduring compositions in the Latin American songbook. Translated to Spanish and married to the subtle beauty of Carlos’ voice, they became anthems for generations of listeners to this day.

Calos recently recorded his latest album — Roberto Carlos – Primera Fila — at London’s Abbey Road Studios. The set will be released later this year.

Previous recipients of the  Recording Academy Person of the Year honor include Miguel Bosé, Plácido Domingo, Gloria Estefan, Vicente Fernández, Juan Luis Guerra, Carlos Santana, Joan Manuel Serrat, Shakira, Julio Iglesias and Caetano Veloso, among others.

Iglesias Partnering with Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation to Fund Full Scholarship to Berklee College of Music

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Enrique Iglesias is giving back to the community…

The 39-year-old Spanish singer-songwriter is funding a full scholarship in tandem with the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation valued at $200,000 — or $50,000 over four years — for a Hispanic student with financial need to attend Berklee College of Music.

Enrique Iglesias

The idea, says Iglesias, came after Manolo Diaz, who heads the Latin Grammy Foundation, asked him to be involved in the organization and suggested a scholarship. “I thought it was a great idea,” says Iglesias, who decided to go for a single, generous scholarship rather than many smaller ones.

“We wanted to get them through the four years of college. We all know one thing is getting to college, and another is getting through college,” the singer tells Billboard.

Iglesias never received a formal music education. In fact, when he went to college (he would eventually drop out) at the University of Miami, he initially studied business.

“When I first started singing and songwriting, I didn’t even think of going to a university that just had to do with music,” he says. “It wasn’t even on my radar.”

But as time has gone by, Iglesias has worked with an increasing number of people who studied music, with several of them attending Berklee. They include longtime producer Carlos Paucar.

“My first question to him was, ‘Was it worth it and was it good and would you do it all over again?'” Says Iglesias. “And he said yes, 100 percent.”

It was important to him, says Iglesias, that the recipient of the scholarship be a Latin student. It’s the same mentality he’s long applied to the artists he’s mentored — Prince Royce a couple of years ago and J Balvin now, among them — by having them open up his shows.

“I don’t see it so much as, ‘I’m helping another artist,” he explains. “What’s important is that whoever we tour with is a Latin act. I think we need to promote Latin music. And even if we’re going to markets where there are not that many Latin stations, or any Latin stations, you know the Latin community in this country is growing at a very rapid pace, and it’s important to promote Latin music and more importantly, Latin acts.”

As one of the few Latin artists who have opening acts, Iglesias also says it’s a thrill to watch artists evolve before his eyes.

“It helps them and it helps me,” he says. “It gives me energy. It inspires me to watch artists like that, who are hungry.”

Applications to the Enrique Iglesias Scholarship presented by the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation will be open for Latin students in any Spanish or Portuguese speaking country, the U.S. and Canada, through April 10 at latingrammyculturalfoundation.com.