Miami, June 02, 2009 – The Cintas Foundation announced Gladys Triana as the winner for the 2009 Cintas Foundation Emilio Sanchez Award in the Visual Arts and Sergio Barroso as the winner for the 2009 Brandon Fradd Award in Music Composition.  Each award carries a $15,000 cash prize, which is used by the winner to further his or her creative development.  The awards were announced at a reception at the Frost Art Museum upon the opening of the 2009 Finalists Exhibit.

In 2005, the Emilio Sanchez Foundation (www.emiliosanchezfoundation.org) endowed an award in the visual arts, through 2009, in honor of the late Cuban artist Emilio Sanchez (1921 – 1999) who received a Cintas fellowship in 1989. This will be the fifth and last such award in the series of five donated by the Emilio Sanchez Foundation. It was first awarded in 2005 to Christian Curiel, then in 2006 to Glexis Novoa, in 2007 to Gean Moreno, and in 2008 to Ernesto Oroza.

The 2009 jury for the visual arts fellowship award included Elvis Fuentes, curator, Museo del Barrio, New York; Rene Morales, associate curator, Miami Art Museum; Alma Ruiz, curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Robert Storr, dean of Yale University’s School of Art, New Haven; Gilbert Vicario, assistant curator of Latin American and Latino Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Past visual arts fellows include Cundo Bermudez, Maria Brito, Liset Castillo, Jose Chardiet, Luis Gispert, Quisqueya Henriquez, Gean Moreno, Mario Petrirena, Baruj Salinas and Lydia Rubio. A complete history and listings of the fellows may be found in the Cintas Foundation web site at www.cintasfoundation.org

The 2009 jury for the prestigious Brandon Fradd Award in Music Composition included Shelton Berg, dean of the Frost School of Music at University of Miami; independent composer Steven Burke and Paul Chihara, composer and professor of theory and composition at the University of Los Angeles.

Brandon Fradd, managing director of Apollo Medical Partners, generously funded the endowment for the fellowship in music composition, which is now an annual fellowship.

Past music fellows include Mario Bauza (known as the father of AfroCuban jazz), Jose Bernardo, Aldo Rafael Forte, Julian Orbon, Tania Leon and Orlando Jacinto Garcia.

“We were delighted with the continued quality of the applicants and encourage all to visit the exhibition at the Frost curated by The Frost Art Museum Director and Chief Curator Carol Damian”, said Hortensia Sampedro, President of the Cintas Foundation.  “We also sincerely appreciate the work of the outstanding panel of jurors for their professionalism and dedication.”

Since 1963, the Cintas Foundation has awarded more than 300 fellowships to artists of Cuban lineage who reside outside of Cuba. The only one of its kind in the nation, the program has honored top Cuban artists, many at the start of their careers, who have gone on to play an influential role in the development of their disciplines.

The Selection Program is administered by the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University and the Cintas Foundation. For more information, please visit www.cintasfoundation.org or www.frostartmuseum.org

Miami, May 06, 2009 – Miami – The Cintas Foundation (www.cintasfoundation.org) will present the 2009 William B. Warren Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Composition to Cuban composer Aurelio de la Vega. The award is named after Cintas Foundation Chairman William B. Warren, who has led the foundation for the last 20 years as its second president.

Aurelio de la Vega was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1925 and studied at the University of Havana (Ph.D. in Law), at the Conservatorio Ada Iglesias (Ph.D., Music Composition) and, independently, with Fritz Kramer (Havana) and Ernst Toch (Los Angeles). De la Vega settled in California in 1959 and became distinguished professor of Music and the director of the Electronic Music Studio at California State University, Northridge. His vast catalogue of works encompasses compositions in all media except opera. He has been very influential in the U.S. musical scene, promoting the contemporary classical music of Latin America.

Throughout his teaching years and in the years since his retirement, de la Vega has been an active composer as well as a lecturer in the field of music. His list of compositions includes symphonic pieces, chamber music works, solo instrumental pieces, vocal works, piano, guitar and ballet music and electronic compositions. Major orchestras and prominent soloists throughout the world have performed his works. The composer has been the recipient of many prizes and distinctions, including the Friedheim Award of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which he has received twice. In 2000, de la Vega was honored by the Library of Congress when his graphic score, “The Magic Labyrinth,” was included in the library’s 733-page volume, “Music History from Primary Sources.” Among the music greats included with him were Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Gershwin, Handel, Liszt, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Puccini, Stravinsky and Verdi.

“As one of the best known Cuban composers of his generation, Aurelio de la Vega offers a dramatic, intense and expressive musical style,” said Hortensia E. Sampedro, president of the Cintas Foundation, in announcing the award. “We are pleased to recognize the Maestro for a career that spans more than 50 years and includes recognition from around the world and most recently a nomination for a Latin Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for his piece Variación del Recuerdo (Variations of a Memory)”.

The award will be presented at a ceremony at the Frost Art Museum of Florida International University on May 20, 2009 at 7:00 pm. The public is invited.

About The Cintas Foundation
The Cintas Foundation was established with funds from the estate of the late Oscar B. Cintas (b. Sagua La Grande, Cuba 1887 – d. New York City, 1957), a prominent industrialist and patron of the arts. Since 1963, the Cintas Foundation has awarded more than 300 fellowships to artists of Cuban lineage who reside outside of Cuba. The first William B. Warren Lifetime Fellow in Music was granted to Bebo Valdes. Past music fellows have included Sergio Barroso, Mario Bauza (known as the father of AfroCuban jazz), Jose Bernardo, Aldo Rafael Forte, Orlando Jacinto Garcia, Tania Leon and Julian Orbon, among many others.

About the Frost Art Museum – Florida International University
The Frost is an AAM accredited museum and Smithsonian affiliate. The museum is located at 10975 SW 17thSt. across from the Blue garage and adjacent to the Wertheim Performing Arts Center on the University Park campus. Its hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sunday noon-5 p.m. The Frost is closed on Mondays and most legal holidays. For more information, please visit www.frostartmuseum.org or call 305-348-2890.

Miami, (Jan. 23, 2009) Artists and musicians have until Jan. 30 to submit applications for the coveted annual Cintas fellowships in the visual arts and music administered by the Cintas Foundation and the Cintas Fellowship Program at FIU’s Frost Art Museum. The fellowship competitions for the 2009 Emilio Sánchez Award in the Visual Arts and the 2009 Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition began Dec. 9, 2008. Finalists will be announced in May 2009. Cintas fellows are awarded $15,000 and the opportunity to pursue an art project outlined in their applications.

The visual arts award is funded through the generous support of the Emilio Sánchez Foundation to recognize the achievements of the winner of the Cintas Fellowship in the visual arts. Based in New York City, the foundation is a nonprofit organization that preserves and promotes the legacy of the Cuban-born American artist Emilio Sánchez (1921-1999) through research, exhibitions and publications. Applicants must submit original images or film projects. Past visual arts fellows include Ernesto Oroza, Carlos Alfonzo, Teresita Fernández, Anthony Goicolea, Ernesto Oroza, photographers Andres Serrano and María Martínez-Caíñas, sculptor Maria Elena González and filmmaker Mari Rodríguez-Ichaso.

Established in 2006, the Brandon Fradd Fellowship is generously endowed by Brandon Fradd of NewYork City. Managing director of Apollo Medical Partners, Fradd, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, grew up in Miami among Cuban friends from whom he learned Spanish and developed an interest in Cuban music. Applicants for the music fellowship must submit original musical compositions and recordings of their work. Past music fellows include Armando Bayolo, Sergio Barroso, Mario Bauza (known as the father of Afro-Cuban jazz), José Bernardo Aldo Rafael Forte, Julián Orbon, Tania León and Orlando Jacinto Garcia. Last year, the first William B. Warren Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Bebo Valdes.

The only one of its kind in the nation, the program has honored some of the world’s most talented Cuban artists and musicians. The Cintas Foundation awards fellowships annually to creative artists of Cuban lineage who are currently residing outside of Cuba.

Since it was established in 1963, the Cintas Fellowship Program has honored more than 300 artists. FIU and the Cintas Foundation Board have been administering the awards program since 2005. The Cintas Fellowship Program encourages creative development in architecture, literature, music composition and the visual arts, and awards annual fellowships in creative writing and visual arts as well. The foundation was established with funds from the estate of Oscar B. Cintas (1887-1957), former Cuban ambassador to the United States, a prominent industrialist and patron of the arts. Application forms and competition requirements are available online at www.cintasfoundation.org or by contacting Stephanie Guasp at the Frost Art Museum at [email protected]

About the Frost Art Museum- Florida International University
The Frost is an AAM accredited museum and Smithsonian affiliate. The museum is located at 10975 SW 17th St. across from the Blue garage and adjacent to the Wertheim Performing Arts Center on the University Park campus. Its hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday 10-5 and Sunday noon-5. The Frost is closed on all legal holidays. For more information, please visit www.frostartmuseum.org or call 305.348.2890