Alejandro Sanz receives honorary doctorate from Berklee

Singer Alejandro Sanz was awarded an honorary doctorate by the prestigious Berklee College of Music in recognition of the Spaniard’s contribution to contemporary music.

In a packed auditorium, Grammywinning producer and artistic director of Berklee’s Mediterranean Music Institute Javier Limon called attention to the value of Sanz’s work for Mediterranean music.

College president Roger Brown gave a verbal tour of the Spanish songwriter’s career from the point at which he burst into the music market with “Viviendo Deprisa” in 1991 up to his most recent album “La musica no se toca,” which earned him several Latin Grammy nominations.

In the company of Limon, Sanz came to the podium under the attentive gaze of one of the most illustrious of the school’s former students, Juan Luis Guerra, whom he considered “the best composer” he had known.

“This moment of happiness I dedicate to my country. This other moment to my father and my mother, who always believed in me. In that order. The third moment to my children and my wife, who are my open wounds from where what remains to me to write will come ... I dedicate the rest to music,” Sanz said in Spanish.

After the ceremony, more than 40 Berklee students, musicians and singers from all over the world, offered a concert at which they interpreted many of Sanz’s numbers, the climax of which was a performance by the Spaniard himself.