California State University, Northridge Chicana/o studies professor Fermin Herrera is still beaming with pride a week after receiving word that an album he produced featuring vocals by his daughter, Ixya Herrera, has been nominated for a Grammy Award.

“Voz Y Guitarra,” which also features work by one of Mexico’s leading guitarists, Elias Torres, has been nominated for Best Regional Mexican Music Album. The album, which was issued by the label Rampart Latino Records, is up against some tough competition, including an album by legendary Mexican recording artist Vicente Fernández.

“It is really quite an honor to be included in such company,” said Herrera, whose co-producer on the album was his son, Xocoyotzin Herrera, also a member of CSUN’s Chicana/o studies faculty. “Vicente Fernández is a legend. Our little album is up against some big-name competition. It’s quite a compliment.”

The album features a rich offering of traditional Mexican regional music, from huapangos and romantic boleros to canciones clásicas and canciones rancheras. All of it sung with graceful clarity and power by Ixya Herrera, backed only by the impressive playing skills of Torres.

Ixya Herrera, who graduated from CSUN in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in Chicana/o studies, previously released two CDs of classic Mexican songs. Billboard Magazine has said she displayed “astonishing power, range and graceful maturity.” The LA Weekly wrote that she has “blazing vocal and inspirational diversity … her voice soars and dives … an ability to tell a story with authenticity as well as an alluring purr.”

Fermin Herrera, who himself is an internationally acclaimed harpist and respected expert on Mexican music, said the origins of “Voz Y Guitarra” lie in a performance his daughter and Torres gave at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Georgia a few years ago.

Just before the duo were to go on stage, Herrera peeked through the curtains, looked at the mostly white, Southern audience and wondered what they would think about a performance of traditional Mexican songs done entirely in Spanish.

“There was not a brown face there. I kept thinking, ‘What are we doing?’” he said. “Afterward, this man introduced himself to Ixya as a retired colonel and then told her he was glad she stopped singing when she did. I didn’t know what to think. But then he said, ‘I have no more tears left.’ He had been so moved by songs he didn’t even understand the words to. The experience was transcending, and I knew we had to do an album.”

The 57^th Annual Grammy Awards telecast on CBS will air Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015, live from the Staples Center.

College of Humanities, Featured, Music