Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for Best Improvised Jazz Solo (for “Don’t Fence Me In”), Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella (for “Stars and Stripes Forever”), and Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Perez Lopez was in attendance for the ceremony and when the latter award was announced, he and several fellow performers took to the stage shedding tears and sharing hugs.
instrument. As I continued through middle school and high school I got more serious with it and decided I wanted to try to make a career out of it.”
clarinetist bad enough to practice many hours every single day and never miss a day. In the last year that I was teaching him, I was sending him to gigs that I couldn’t do.” “We might have broken the rules by all of us storming onto the stage, but it was worth it,” It was during his sophomore year at Perez Lopez says with a laugh. “When John IUSB that Perez Lopez set in motion the accepted the award for Best Improvised Jazz events that would lead to three wins at the Solo, he recognized me on stage and talked Grammy awards this year. He’d submitted about my story. I was really grateful for that. a story to the New York Times detailing his background as a federal DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient and his passion for music. Several months after the story was published, he was contacted via Facebook by Kabir Sehgal, one of the producers for the “American Dreamers” album, and became the first of 53 individuals in the DACA program to be part of the project.
Soon Perez Lopez was off to Indiana University-South Bend, and his undergrad years brought many musical experiences that helped to further sharpen his craft including wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, jazz band and orchestra performances as well as a spot with the Elkhart County Symphony. “Salvador is the most consistently hardworking college student that I’ve actually ever had,” says Chris French, who served as Perez Lopez’s IUSB clarinet instructor. The two first met when French coached the South Bend Youth Symphony during Perez Lopez’s high school years.
“(Sehgal) said the album’s music director, John Daversa, and the producers wanted to raise some awareness about immigration and DACA by doing a jazz album,” Perez Lopez says. “They flew me down to Miami where the recording was going to be done in March 2018 and I played on every track. It was a great experience.”
“It’s typical for college musicians to get really inspired and go home to practice for three hours, and by the next week their instrument stays in the case until it’s time for the next lesson,” says French, who teaches clarinet and saxophone at IUSB, Goshen College, the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s College. “With Salvador, he wants to be a professional
The album, which features the John Daversa Big Band along with the DACA performers, went on to win at the 61st Annual Grammy
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