New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation announced the winners of its Research and Preservation Grant program. This program provides grants to music institutions, nonprofit organizations, musicologists, and researchers around the world who are enhancing and preserving Latin music heritage. This year, an eclectic group of institutions and scholars will receive this support. The four grants, with a maximum value of $5,000 each, support diverse initiatives: The Preservation Grants fund the archiving and preservation of Latin music and its unique customs, while the Research Grants support projects that emphasize historical and anthropological research, in addition to documenting traditions and Latin folklore.
"Each year we are privileged to have the opportunity and responsibility of reviewing and awarding our research and preservation grants. It is with great pleasure that we recognize this year's honorees for their outstanding works and contributions," said Manuel Abud, CEO of The Latin Recording Academy. "What an inspiration it has been to witness the abundance of projects and musical talent that are honoring and upholding the legacy of Latin music, and, together, we look forward to preserving this program for future generations."
Awarded Preservation Grants:
- Dr. Rosa Iraima Sulbarán and Melisa Colmenares, Mérida, Venezuela - "Archivo audiovisual de Resiliencias: Música tradicional" is a project that seeks to preserve audiovisual documents highlighting the resilience of rituals and centuries old musical genres recorded throughout Venezuela. This material currently archived in personal collections is unavailable to the public, remaining invisible. The hope is to bring these collections to light, providing public access and broad distribution of their existence. The audiovisual, photographic and testimonial records cover six musical cultures, which were recorded with advanced technology under scientific and ethical concepts. They reflect the rituals, characteristics and meanings that are emblematic for the continent, demonstrating a history of conflicts and regional crisis throughout Latin America. In this chapter of history, protests take place in popular religious environments, revealing the imagination and resilience of the people to reconstruct life and the symbolic practices of these cultural towns. This material will not only observe and transmit strength like qualities marking resilience, but also help to appreciate the true value of traditional popular cultures and their musical genres.
- The Regents of University of California,
Santa Barbara, UC
Santa Barbara Library - Funding for the California Preservation and Assessment of the Astor Piazzolla Materials in the Edouard Pecourt Collection comes at a significant moment in time as the world celebrates the centenary of Piazzolla's birth in 1921. This anniversary has drawn the attention of performers and audiences around the world, with tribute concerts and recordings, documentaries and exhibitions taking place in cities from Buenos Aires to Trondheim, Seoul, and Houston. The timing provides additional motivation to increase awareness and research of Piazzolla's life and the development of his work. The Pecourt collection contains significant documents related to the life and career of Piazzolla. There are open-reel tapes, audio cassettes, videos, manuscripts, photographs, and other ephemera that need additional documentation and study. The correspondence between Piazzolla and Pecourt also needs further exploration and documentation. These materials serve as clues to Piazzolla's decisions, ideas, and compositions. Given that Piazzolla was a musical revolutionary and an immensely popular composer of tango and Latin American music, it is important that this collection be made more accessible to researchers and be put in the broader context of Piazzolla's work and 20th century Latin American music.
Awarded Research Grants:
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Andrea López and Víctor López, México - Through "El pasado que suena y resuena: nuestra herencia decimonónica" this project intends to produce three videos with works from powerful music genres from the 19th century in Mexico that are found in documents protected in historical archives. Uncovering these bodies of work will serve to realize how these sounds and genres persist in the present day, while providing a visual context that will help listeners more deeply comprehend and enjoy these forms of music. The materials, including videos, soundtracks, digitalized versions of sheet music, books, and complimentary audiovisual material of these genres, will be available free of charge online. These investigations have been and will continue to be carried out by members of Seminario de Música en la Nueva España and México Independiente (Musicat), belonging to Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and they will also provide perspective on the historical interpretation informed by the unedited works of different genres from the 19th century proposed for the project. The sound production will be contextualized with graphic and visual elements to produce three videos. Field records will be documented through the observation of traditional practices that are still relevant today, in order to contrast them with historical practices from which they emerged with the ultimate goal of preserving them as living testimony.
- Sofía Cecconi, Buenos Aires, Argentina - With "Aproximación al tango contemporáneo producido por mujeres en la ciudad de Buenos Aires" this project procures the exploration, description, registration and dissemination of contemporary tango produced by women in the city of Buenos Aires. It is about providing visibility to the new compositions, lyrics, and musical performances that women are producing, in this historically male-dominated musical genre. The female tangueras, are protagonists of a new reality, a new era in tango which is poignant to investigate, bring to the spotlight and share.
A committee of experts from Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, and the United States selected the recipients among numerous qualified candidates. Since its inception in 2015, the program has awarded more than $155,000 in grants to support projects, one of which received a Latin GRAMMY® and GRAMMY® Award.
