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Preserving a Musical Tradition
When Ben de Menil (MBA 2006) first heard Dominican bachata music, he knew he was hearing something special. Through his record label iASO Records and the nonprofit iASO Bachata Academy, established in 2013, in Cabarete on the northern shore of the Dominican Republic, he is working to preserve the music and teach a new generation of young musicians the traditional rhythms.
“I had a dream of a musical community,” he says, describing his initial concept. “A place where people went and were fully immersed in music as if it were a language they were speaking constantly and through that were able to develop their musical senses and abilities to a very high level.”
When the academy’s students perform for their community, de Menil says, “There’s an extraordinary enthusiasm. They are playing songs that everybody knows and the crowd will be singing along.” These students—“probably the best guitarists in the area”—are the next generation of professional musicians, the people who will be invigorating traditional bachata, writing songs, recording, and touring internationally, he says. “Hopefully, they will be making the music even better than it already is.”
(Published March 2015)
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