Cuarteto Latinoamericano and Producer Dan Merceruio Win Latin Grammy(R) for Best Classical Album

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - Nov 19, 2012) - The 13th annual Latin GRAMMY® awards were presented at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Thursday evening. Among the winners were Cuarteto Latinoamericano and producer Dan Merceruio who won the Best Classical Album award for their recording Brasileiro: Works of Francisco Mignone. This was the first Latin GRAMMY® for ensemble and producer.

Cuarteto Latinoamericano, formed in 1981, is known worldwide as the leading proponent of Latin American music for string quartet. This award-winning ensemble from Mexico consists of the three Bitrán brothers, violinists Saúl and Arón and cellist Alvaro, along with violist Javier Montiel. The Cuarteto has recorded most of the Latin American repertoire for string quartet, and the sixth volume of their Villa-Lobos 17 quartet cycle, recorded for Dorian, was nominated for a GRAMMY® award in 2002 in the field of Best Chamber Music Recording as well as for a Latin GRAMMY®. The Cuarteto has commissioned guitar quintets from American composers Michael Daugherty and Gabriela Lena Frank. Inca Dances by Frank won the 2009 GRAMMY® for Best New Latin Composition.

As of 2011 the Cuarteto Latinoamericano is under an exclusive recording agreement with Sono Luminus (www.sonoluminus.com), for whom they have released three albums: Encores (2010), Mexican Romantic Quartets (2011), and their latest CD, Brasileiro: Works of Mignone. Sono Luninus is distributed in North America by Naxos of America.

Naxos of America: Headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville, Naxos of America (www.Naxosusa.com) is the #1 independent classical music distributor in the U.S. and Canada. Specializing in state-of-the-art distribution, marketing and promotion, Naxos of America distributes nearly 35,000 titles on CD, DVD and Blu-ray to traditional brick and mortar retail, as well as offering a comprehensive suite of services tailored to consumer direct fulfillment. Naxos of America is also the largest digital distributor of independent classical music, supplying a catalog of over 30,000 albums to hundreds of digital download and mobile outlets worldwide. Naxos of America offers marketing, e-marketing, publicity, e-publicity, physical and digital e-commerce services, licensing opportunities, streaming services, sales and customer service for all new releases and active catalog titles of Naxos Records and more than 150 distributed labels.