Ahead of the 2025 Latin GRAMMYs on Thursday, Nov. 13, the Latin Recording Academy has announced this year’s Special Awards honorees.
Among this year’s honorees are Peruvian icon Susana Baca, Spanish rocker Enrique Bunbury, Brazilian legend Ivan Lins, iconic Mexican pop group Pandora, and Puerto Rican superstar Olga Tañón, who will all receive this year’s Latin Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor presented to performers who have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to Latin music and its communities.
These artists represent decades of Latin music excellence — from Baca’s preservation of Afro-Peruvian musical traditions, Bunbury’s Latin rock innovations, Lins’ internationally acclaimed songwriting, Pandora’s Latin pop dominance, and Tañón’s merengue and salsa mastery that earned her the nickname “Mujer de Fuego” (“Woman of Fire”).
Twelve-time Latin GRAMMY winner and seven-time GRAMMY winner Eric Schilling will also receive the prestigious Trustees Award, which is bestowed on individuals who have made significant contributions to Latin music during their careers in ways other than performance. Schilling, an innovative audio engineer, has shaped Latin music through his work with Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Thalía, Juan Luis Guerra, and Cachao. He has also earned eight Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sound Mixing for major broadcast events.
Both the Latin Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Award are voted on by the Latin Recording Academy’s Board of Trustees.
The honorees will be celebrated alongside the Latin Recording Academy’s first-ever Latin Music Educator Award recipient, a newly launched honor, in partnership with the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation, that recognizes one exceptional educator from the global music community who is making a significant impact by incorporating Latin music into their curriculum. Additionally, the recipient’s school music program will receive a $10,000 instrument donation to support continued music education.
“It is an immense privilege to honor these musical legends — who continue redefining our Latin music and heritage — as well as our inaugural Latin Music Educator Award recipient,” Latin Recording Academy CEO Manuel Abud said in a statement. “We look forward to celebrating them all as part of our 26th Annual Latin GRAMMY Week festivities.”
The Special Awards Presentation, presented for the second consecutive year by Windstar Cruises, takes place Sunday, Nov. 9, in Las Vegas. The event is one of the marquee events of the annual Latin GRAMMY Week, a weeklong celebration featuring special events, including Leading Ladies of Entertainment, Latin GRAMMY In The Schools, Nominee Reception, Best New Artist Showcase, Person of the Year Gala, which this year will honor legendary Spanish singer Raphael as the 2025 Latin Recording Academy Person Of The Year, and Premiere Ceremony, all leading up to the annual Latin GRAMMY Awards. Ahead of the 2025 Latin GRAMMYs, Latin GRAMMY Week will once again feature a full slate of celebrations throughout Las Vegas. More details on Latin GRAMMY Week 2025 will be announced in the coming months.
The 2025 Latin GRAMMYs, taking place Thursday, Nov. 13, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, will debut a new field and two new Latin GRAMMY categories, including Best Music For Visual Media, housed within the new Visual Media field, and Best Roots Song. Nominations for the 2025 Latin GRAMMYs will be announced Wednesday, Sept. 17, and streamed across the Latin Recording Academy’s social channels.
Learn more about the 2025 Special Awards honorees below:
2025 Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees:
Susana Baca (Peru)
Throughout a distinguished career that spans decades, Susana Baca has investigated, cherished and safeguarded the once forgotten traditions of Afro-Peruvian music. A luminous performer — and three-time Latin GRAMMY winner and two-time GRAMMY nominee — she belongs in the same exclusive group of folk songstresses as Mercedes Sosa and Violeta Parra. Born in 1944, Susana Esther Baca de la Colina grew up in Lima, surrounded by music. She initially worked as a schoolteacher, then began traveling across the Peruvian coastline with her husband, Ricardo Pereira, studying the country’s Black culture. By the mid-’90s, her exquisite recording of the Chabuca Granda gem “María Landó” had established her as a global diva, igniting a growing interest in the Afro-Peruvian genre. In 2020, Baca demonstrated the purity of her vision with A Capella, a stunning solo session. She continues touring and recording to this day.
Enrique Bunbury (Spain)
Pioneering, musically omnivorous and intensely poetic, Enrique Bunbury is not only one of the most visionary rock stars ever to emerge from Spain, but also a 21st century master when it comes to crafting transcendent songs in the Spanish language. Born in Zaragoza in 1967, Enrique Ortiz de Landázuri Izarduy gained fame between the late ’80s and the early ’90s as the vocalist for the band Héroes del Silencio. But it was his solo output — beginning with classic albums like Pequeño (1999) and Flamingos (2002)— that found him developing a wondrous sound nourished by the reckless passion of Latin American folklore and the chiaroscuro shades of cabaret music. A live performer of hypnotic bravado, the Latin GRAMMY winner has continued to expand his stark aesthetic on memorable albums like Greta Garbo (2023) and Cuentas Pendientes (2025).
Ivan Lins (Brazil)
The creator of such timeless Brazilian anthems as “Madalena” and “Começar de Novo,” Ivan Lins is a keyboardist and singer/songwriter of staggering harmonic imagination and melodic genius. He is a Rio de Janeiro native who began his career under the spell of bossa nova, but quickly took flight and developed a deeply personal, cosmopolitan musical language of his own. Born in 1945, Ivan Guimarães Lins first gained exposure in Brazil during the late ’60s. Gradually, his songs bewitched several generations of American jazz stars, from Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan to Quincy Jones and Michael Bublé. With over 800 compositions to his credit, the prolific Lins has been releasing new records from the ’70s to the present. He is a two-time GRAMMY nominee and has won multiple Latin GRAMMYs, including Album Of The Year in 2005 for Cantando Histórias, a soulful retrospective live session.
Pandora (Mexico)
The landscape of Latin pop was forever transformed in 1985 when Mexican vocal trio Pandora released “Cómo Te Va Mi Amor,” the first of many international hit singles. It wasn’t only the song’s opening sax line, supple backbeat and sweet keyboard lines that captured the public’s imagination. There was also an air of hope and everlasting romance in the vocalizing of the band’s stars: sisters Isabel and Mayte Lascurain alongside Fernanda Meade. Pandora’s now-legendary self-titled debut was only the beginning. The GRAMMY nominees have collaborated with such musical legends as Armando Manzanero and Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews and Luis Miguel. In 2019, Más Pandora Que Nunca expanded the trio’s repertoire with a number of stellar duets. Still going strong, Pandora is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year with Pandora 40, a new compilation album of their greatest hits from the last four decades, along with an autobiographical tome detailing their personal and professional trajectory.
Olga Tañón (Puerto Rico)
One listen of the 1994 mega-hit “Es Mentiroso” is enough to appreciate the inordinate amounts of attitude and swing that Puerto Rican singer Olga Tañón has brought to merengue — a genre that at the time was predominantly male and confined to the Dominican Republic. But Tañón is much more than a merengue superstar. She has experimented with a multitude of styles, lending her gutsy voice to bachata, salsa and Latin pop. Olga Teresa Tañón Ortiz was born in San Juan in 1967 and kicked off her career as a member of tropical group Chantelle before experiencing massive success on her own. From the vibrant urbano tropical fusion of “La Gran Fiesta” (2017) to the feverish groove of “Mi Forma De Ser” (2021), the multiple Latin GRAMMY and GRAMMY winner continues to shine as a beacon of contemporary merengue music.
2025 Trustees Award Honoree:
Eric Schilling (United States)
The recipient of 12 Latin GRAMMYs and seven GRAMMYs, Eric Schilling is a visionary audio engineer who has shaped and transformed the sound of Latin recordings over the last quarter century. He began his career as a teenager, taping live radio broadcasts by rock legends in the San Francisco Bay area, where he was mentored by Motown veteran Bob Ohlsson. Moving to Florida proved serendipitous, as Schilling established a long-standing creative partnership with Gloria and Emilio Estefan, becoming their engineer of choice on classic albums such as Mi Tierra and 90 Millas. Schilling has also added a sumptuous sheen of audio magic to quintessential 21st-century albums by Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Thalía, Juan Luis Guerra, Cachao, and many others. An expert in engineering major broadcast events, he has also won eight Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sound Mixing.
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