Full Sail University

Three Grads Credited on 2012 Latin Grammy Winners

Full Sail graduates Samuel Allison, Dustin Higgins, and Ronald Sharpless were credited on winning projects in six different categories.

Three Grads Credited on 2012 Latin Grammy Winners - Hero image

The 13th Annual Latin Grammy ceremony was held in Las Vegas last week, recognizing many of the genre’s most popular artists, as well as some exciting newcomers. Looking at the winners, we were proud to see that Full Sail graduates Samuel Allison, Dustin Higgins, and Ronald Sharpless were credited on winning projects in six different categories – including Album of the Year.

Ron Sharpless (Recording Arts, 2004) worked as audio technician on the Juanes hit MTV Unplugged, which walked away with Album of the Year. The record also netted two additional awards, including Best Long From Music Video and Producer of the Year for industry vet Juan Luis Guerra. MTV Unplugged has had a strong chart presence since its release this summer, reaching number one on Billboard’s Latin Albums chart.

Best Latin Jazz Album and Best Engineered Album went to Arturo Sandoval’s Dear Diz (Every Day I Think of You). Recording Arts grad Dustin Higgins (2005) was engineer on the album, and also contributed guitar work. Sandoval has been a fixture in Latin jazz for nearly four decades, and has collaborated with other artists like Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Alicia Keys, and Justin Timberlake.

Finally, 2005 Recording Arts grad Sam Allison was Assistant Engineer on Luis Enrique’s Soy Y Sere, which was the winner for Best Salsa Album. The record was the follow up to Enrique’s popular 2009 release Ciclos, a previous Latin Grammy winner.

We’d like to congratulate these three grads, as well as the additional alumni who worked on this year’s range of Latin Grammy nominees. In total there were 14 graduates of our Recording Arts program credited on 14 artist releases nominated in 15 total categories.