By Gal Tziperman Lotan
Berklee College of Music students, alumni, professors and famous musicians will perform and host clinics at Berklee’s eighth annual Latin Culture Celebration, tomorrow through Thursday.
Rosa Passos, a Brazilian Bossa Nova singer-songwriter, will kick off this year’s Sovereign Bank Music Series at the Berklee Performance Center Thursday, at 8:15 p.m.
Along with her performance, titled “Rosa por Berklee,” Passos will host a music clinic and meet with classes and ensembles at Berklee.
“Rosa is a very big deal because she is getting people, especially young people, to listen to Bossa Nova music in a new way. Her music is paramount,” said Jane Stachowiak, Berklee’s director of Special Projects for Student Affairs
A group of students and faculty chose the performers from a list of people students told the administration they wanted to see on campus, Stachowiak said. Planning for the event began in April.
“It was a very cooperative effort,” she said.
Additional clinics and concerts will be held at the Berklee Performance Center and the David Friend Recital Hall located at 921 Boylston St.
Berklee is offering Northeastern students discounted tickets to “Rosa por Berklee” at $22.50. Admission to other performances is $10 for the Berklee Performance Center and free for the David Friend Recital Hall.
As part of its Latin Culture Celebration, Berklee College of Music is sending 11 students and two faculty members to the Latin Grammy Awards and the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year Tribute Wednesday in Las Vegas.
The evening will honor merengue singer-songwriter and ’82 Berklee alumni Juan Luis Guerra. Guerra has five Latin Grammy nominations, and is among nine other Berklee alumni with nominations this year.
An eight-student band directed by Bernardo Hernandez, Berklee assistant professor of Contemporary Writing and Production, will also perform medleys of Guerra’s songs, which they arranged themselves Wednesday evening.
Peter Alhadeff, professor of music business and management, will be assisting a business delegation of three students. Both the band and the business delegation will attend the Latin Grammys Thursday.
Berklee junior Javier Samayoa, president of the 120-member Berklee Latin American Music and Business Club said Berklee’s relationship with the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (LARAS), which organizes the Latin Grammys, began as a student initiative.
Last fall Samayoa and his roommate Daniel Diaz, a recent graduate of Berklee, sent LARAS an email requesting tickets to the 2006 Latin Grammy Awards.
“Within 24 hours, we had four tickets to attend the Latin Grammys in New York,” said Samayoa a piano performance and music business major. “We went, did networking, met with the president and CFO of the Grammys and invited the president to Berklee in April to do a panel. It was like the stars had lined up for us.”
Samayoa said relationships similar to that of the Latin American Music and Business Club and LARAS are common.
“As Latin students, we have been noticing lately that the Latin community is growing,” he said. “From personal experience, I can say students get motivated doing a project like this. It gives them something to achieve besides being in the practice room nine hours a day.”
He said he hopes the trip’s business delegates can “continue doing networking and solidify the Latin Grammy’s relationship with Berklee so that when students here graduate, they can continue into the industry.”
