Student Awarded $200,000 Enrique Iglesias Scholarship to Attend Berklee

Silviana Itzel Salinas-Reyna, a 22-year-old tenor saxophone student from Mexico City, is the recipient of the Enrique Iglesias Scholarship presented by the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation. The award was announced today at a special presentation at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach in Miami. Salinas-Reyna was chosen by the Foundation's Scholarship Committee, which evaluated a highly competitive pool of applicants and unanimously decided to grant her the $200,000 scholarship to further her music education at Berklee.

"We are extremely proud and thrilled to grant Salinas-Reyna the opportunity to pursue her musical dreams," said Manolo Diaz, vice president of the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation. "She is remarkably gifted and we look forward to seeing her career flourish. We thank Enrique Iglesias and Berklee College of Music for their support with this, our first international scholarship."

"It is an honor and a privilege to be part of this initiative. To support new talent is personally rewarding," said Iglesias. "When you are passionate about music and making it a career, your dream is to learn from one of the best institutions, and Berklee is that university. And financial strain should not be a barrier. I'm so proud and humbled to be in a position where I can help and wish her the best of luck."

Roger H. Brown, president of Berklee, said the award means very much to Berklee. "We are grateful to the foundation for generously supporting a student from Latin America who would otherwise not be able to attend. Just as important, we are delighted to count on further strengthening the ties to Latin music and culture, for its music has enriched Berklee across the decades, with alumni like Juan Luis Guerra and honorary degree recipient Alejandro Sanz. Many thanks to the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation for this generous and important award."

Set to commence her studies in fall 2015, Salinas-Reyna will be awarded $50,000 in annual tuition assistance over four years from the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation. In order to qualify for continued annual assistance, she must maintain a GPA of at least 3.5 and abide by standards of excellence set forth by the foundation and the college. 

The Foundation's Scholarship Committee, composed of music professionals from all facets of the Latin music industry, accepted applications from March 16 to April 10, 2015. Students from the following 24 countries were encouraged to apply if they had been admitted to attend Berklee in fall 2015: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 

The Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation was established by the Latin Recording Academy to promote international awareness and appreciation of the significant contributions of Latin music and its makers to the world's culture, and to protect its rich musical legacy and heritage. The foundation's primary charitable focus is to provide scholarships to students of Latin music with financial needs, as well as grants to scholars and organizations worldwide for research and preservation of diverse Latin music genres. For additional information, please the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation website, Twitter feed, or Facebook page.

Iglesias, with more than 100 million recordings sold worldwide and a career spanning more than 19 years, has sung his way into the hearts and minds of millions of people all over the world. He has headlined 12 world tours and sold more than 3 million concert tickets throughout his career. Iglesias has performed in every corner of the world, becoming a true global superstar. He has won four Latin GRAMMYs and a GRAMMY for his recordings, Billboard awards for sales, and ASCAP honors for his compositions. Iglesias has the most No. 1 songs on Billboard charts in pop music history with 72 combined No. 1 hits across all charts, the most No. 1 songs on the Dance Club and Hot Latin Songs charts. His song "Bailando" spent the most weeks—41—at No. 1 in the Hot Latin Songs chart's history.