Spanish pop star Miguel Bosé (left) awards a scholarship to 22-year-old Dominican Ernesto Núñez. (Photo: Scott Eisen/WireImage)

Ernesto Núñez, a 22-year-old electric bass player from the Dominican Republic, has been awarded the Miguel Bosé Scholarship by the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation. The award, which has a maximum value of $200,000 over four years, was presented today at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where Núñez plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in contemporary writing and production starting this fall.

At today’s award ceremony on the Berklee campus in Boston, Manolo Díaz, senior vice president of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation, thanked Bosé, a Spanish pop artist and actor who was also present at the ceremony. Díaz said this third annual prodigy scholarship would not have been possible without the Panama-born Bosé’s support. “Today’s event underscores our commitment to nurturing the next generation of Latin music makers,” Diaz proclaimed.

Bosé, the son of an Italian diva Lucia Bosé and renowned bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín,  grew up surrounded by art and culture; Ernest Hemingway, Luchino Visconti and Pablo Picasso were all close family friends. Of his work with the Latin Grammy Foundation and the scholarship, Bosé said, “The Ibero-American countries have a very rich musical culture and the amount of talent that is lost due to lack of resources is incalculable. We must support this beautiful cause.”

Núñez was chosen by the Latin Grammy Foundation’s Scholarship Committee, which evaluated a highly competitive pool of applicants from the Americas and  the Iberian peninsula.

Núñez expressed his gratitude to Bosé, the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation and the people who helped him achieve the honor and said he felt fortunate to have earned the privilege “through the rhythm that identifies my country, which makes me feel that I carry my flag where I am going.”  In order to qualify for continued annual financial assistance, Núñez must maintain a 3.5 GPA and standards of excellence set by the Latin Grammy Foundation and Berklee.

Núñez join a diverse roster of scholarship recipients that includes saxophonist Silviana Itzel Salinas-Reyna of Mexico, who received the award in 2015 when it was sponsored by music icon Enrique Iglesias. The next year’s honor, sponsored by Dominican legend Juan Luis Guerra, went to self-taught Colombian pianist Jesús Molina-Acosta.

Bosé has sold more than 30 million albums and won a Latin Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Album in 2002 for Sereno. He was honored by The Latin Recording Academy as Person of the Year in 2013. He briefly pursued a career as an actor, landing a leading role in Pedro Almodóvar’sTacones Lejanos, before devoting himself fully to music. In 2016 his MTV Unplugged album — which features collaborations with Juanes, Fonseca and Maná’s Sergio Vallín and Alex González, among others — debuted at No. 1 in nine countries. His worldwide Estaré tour kicked off in April with record attendance.

The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation was established by The Latin Recording Academy to promote international awareness and appreciation of the significant contributions of Latin music and its makers to the world’s culture, and to protect its rich musical legacy and heritage.

With a diverse and talented student body representing nearly 100 countries, and alumni and faculty that have collectively won more than 300 Grammys and Latin Grammys, Berklee is the world’s premier learning lab for music. A new campus in Spain, Berklee in Valencia, began hosting the college’s first graduate programs in the fall of 2012.