The Cuban Research Institute and the Libraries at Florida International University are pleased to announce the winners of the 2008 Díaz-Ayala Travel Grant Competition. The following scholars will receive funding to travel to Florida International University in Miami to conduct research in the Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection, housed in the Green Library:
Gustavo Pérez-Firmat, Professor, Columbia University
Project: “Cuba in the American Imagination”
Adrian Hearn, Scholar and Researcher, University of Technology at Sydney
Project: “Musical Bridges between Cuba and China”
Grant recipients will spend several days studying the collection as part of their research on Cuban music. This is the fourth round of winners of the Díaz-Ayala Travel Grants, an initiative of the Cuban Research Institute and the Libraries to increase access and usage of this important historical resource.
The Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection is the most extensive publicly available collection of Cuban music in the United States. The collection’s approximate 100,000 items span the history of popular Cuban and other Latin music, including 25,000 LPs and 14,500 78 mms. The collection also includes 4,500 cassettes containing radio interviews with composers and musicians; 4,000 pieces of sheet music; 3,000 books; and thousands of CDs, photographs, videocassettes, and paper files. Among the collection’s rarest items are recordings made in pre-revolutionary Cuba.
The Cuban Research Institute at the Latin American and Caribbean Center is the nation’s leading institute for research and academic programs on Cuba and Cuban American issues. Its mission is to create and disseminate knowledge on Cuba and Cuban Americans, emphasizing the themes of governance, diaspora studies, the environment, and culture and the arts in its research, publications, and outreach activities.
