BMI Foundation Announces Nicolás Farias as Winner of peermusic Latin Scholarship
Porfirio Piña, Senior Vice President of the BMI Foundation and Director of the peermusic Latin Scholarship competition, has announced that Nicolás Farias is the winner of the 12th annual peermusic Latin Scholarship. Farias, a twenty-year-old native of Guatemala City and student at Berklee College of Music, received the $5,000 award for his song, “Que Los Mares No Se Enteren.” The scholarship was presented during Broadcast Music, Inc.’s star-studded “How I Wrote That Song” panel at the Billboard Latin Music Conference in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, April 29, 2015. Honorable mention goes to Berklee’s Nora Alejandra Gonzalez Herrera for her composition, “Petición.”
The competition featured multi-platinum bachata star Prince Royce as its spokesperson, and a judging panel that included Latin GRAMMY-winning producer Milton “Alcover” Restituyo; Billboard’s Executive Director of Latin Content and Programming, Leila Cobo; Broadcast Music, Inc.’s Director of Latin Writer-Publisher Relations, Carolina Arenas; and peermusic’s VPs of East and West Coast Latin Divisions, Julio Bagué and Yvonne Drazan.
Founded by Ralph Peer in 1928, peermusic is a global network of music publishing companies operating from 33 offices in 27 countries, with well over a quarter of a million titles in the company’s catalogue, and songs that vary from country, blues, jazz, and pop to Latin, concert, and rock & roll. Its Latin Scholarship was established in 2003 through the generosity and vision of peermusic CEO Ralph Peer II, for the purpose of encouraging the next generation of Latin composers. The contest is open to students between the ages of 16 and 24, who are enrolled in any college or university located in the United States and Puerto Rico. A $5,000 scholarship is presented annually for the best original song or instrumental composition in any Latin genre. For more than a decade, the program has nurtured promising musicians who have gone on to distinguish themselves in the fields of television, film, recorded music, and concert performance.
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