Recently, a research project led by Dr. Beatriz Calvo-Peña, assistant professor of Spanish, has stirred great interest in both national and international media.
Calvo-Peña’s extensive research project titled “Female Guaracha singers in Cuba and Their Recordings Held at the Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection” was presented at the Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies, which took place at the Cuban Research Institute housed in Florida International University. The study focused on the Cuban music genre and the role women played in it.
“This research stems from a grant I received some years ago to do research on Cuban music at the Díaz-Ayala collection,” Calvo-Peña said. “I realized that when we talk about Cuban music, women (apart from Celia Cruz) seem to be absent, so I wanted to emphasize the important role they have played in a traditionally masculine genre like the guaracha.”
Her lectures and publications focus on Cultural Studies (literature, cinema, music, history of the press) and Latin America, especially Cuba and the Caribbean region. She likes to tie her research interests to the classroom and fill the courses that she teaches at Barry University with music and other cultural aspects. A good example of this is the course she is now preparing, titled “Hispanic Caribbean Culture through Music and Literature.”
Calvo-Peña has been interviewed by multimedia news agencies in Spanish, including Agencia EFE, S.A., and Radio Marti. U.S. outlets include Los Angeles Hoy and Diario Las Américas; outlets in Spain include El Confidencial, La Vanguardia and El diario; and outlets in Cuba include Cibercuba and Cubanos por el mundo; Venezuelan outlet El Universal and other Latin American countries have also featured Calvo-Peña’s research.
You can read the news in Spanish as published by Agencia EFE and watch the interview by accessing the links below.