Music and Cultural Tour of Brazil

Judy Cantor-Navas is a Grammy-nominated writer, producer and traveler devoted to introducing new audiences to the diverse music of Spain and Latin America, and the stories of its artists and origins. She has written and spoken about classic and contemporary flamenco for media including Billboard, NPR, Radio Gladys Palmera, The Miami Herald and No Depression magazine.

Judy was Cultural Music Consultant for the 2021 Oscar-nominated Disney Animation Movie “Encanto,” and has been a music curator and writer for MTV, Google, Napster and major and independent record labels. She was nominated for a 2020 Grammy Award in the Album Notes category for the box set The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions, and was the recipient of a 2019 Latin Grammy Foundation research grant. Awards for her writing include a National Music Journalism Awards First Prize for Feature Writing, a Society of Professional Journalists’ Green Eyeshade prize for criticism and an Inter American Press Association Fellowship to Buenos Aires.

Judy is the translator of the new book Cha-Cha-Chá: A Dance and an Era, published by Madrid’s Gladys Palmera Collection. Her projects set for release in 2022 include a box set that tells the story of the pioneering Cuban record label Panart, and a podcast about Latinx punk, for which she served as story producer and lead writer. Judy’s many adventures include a stint writing for The Associated Press from Sevilla, where she covered Diego Maradona’s comeback as a player for Sevilla FC. Originally from New York City, she now lives in Barcelona with her husband and son.