CUBAN composer and singer Silvio Rodríguez received the Latino Lifetime Achievement Award at the 10th Music Academy Awards Ceremony in Madrid, with the entire audience on its feet.

During a gala at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos del Recinto Ferial Juan Carlos I, he received the prize from the hands of Spanish singer Luis Eduardo Aute, who described Silvio as his "soulmate."

On announcing its decision in April, the Spanish Academy acknowledged his 40-year career dedicated to "music and social and political commitment," and described his lyrics as an "example of poetic writing."

The announcement also noted that Uruguayan Mario Benedetti once described Silvio (San Antonio de los Baños, 1946) as "a singing poet."

Some of his songs, including "La era está pariendo un corazón," "Canción del elegido," "Playa Girón," "Oleo de mujer con sombrero," and many others that emerged from his creative genius are part of the collective imagination of the Ibero-American public.

Upon receiving the prize, Silvio expressed his natural emotion, and explained that he could not sing as planned given he had just come from touring the Dominican Republic and didn’t think his voice was up to it.

Like the poet that he is, he read a few verses from his anthological "Historia de las sillas," (Story of the Chairs), which has profound meaning:

(He who has a song/will have torment/He who has company/loneliness/He who follows the good path/will have dangerous/ chairs that invite him to stop/But it is worth it to have the good song that torments/and company is worth the loneliness/there will always be the agony of haste/ even though the truth/is filled with seats.)

The prime figure of the Nueva Trova movement has more than 17 albums, from Días y flores (1975) to Cita con ángeles (2003).

The Latino Lifetime Achievement Award, instituted in 1999, has been granted to other great individuals, including Armando Manzanero, Chavela Vargas, the recently deceased Rocío Dúrcal, and fellow Cuban César Portillo de la Luz.

Other winners for the 10th edition of these awards included the Honor Prize for Colombian Shakira and the Revelation Prize for Cuban X Alfonso, "for having contributed to bringing together traditional Cuban rhythms and the 21st century."

The latter musician, who has put out four CDs, the most recent titled Civilización, produces songs in a rock style, using sounds from hip hop, house and Cuban pop music. He created and played the soundtrack for the film Habana Blues, by Spanish director Benito Zambrano, which won the Goya Prize awarded by the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences.