$150K Grant to Fund Les Paul Digital-Analog Music Center in Mahwah

The memory of Mahwah musical legend Les Paul will live on through students in the township, thanks to a museum-inspired $150,000 grant from the Les Paul Foundation.

The Foundation has given a $150K grant to Ramapo College to build a, “state of the art music studio that will educate the musical luminaries of the future in a hybrid facility that bridges the worlds of analog and digital sound,” the Mahwah Museum announced last week.

According to the release, the idea for the facility started with the Museum’s renowned ‘Les Paul in Mahwah’ exhibit, which opened in 2011 and attracted national attention. Both the college and the Foundation contributed to the exhibit.

Ramapo hosted a  tribute concert to Paul, who lived in the township for 50 years until his death in 2009, to kick off the exhibit.

And the Foundation loaned a recreation of Paul’s home studio to the museum. It became one of the most popular components of the exhibit and is now permanently installed at the Museum.

Charles Carreras, the Museum’s team leader for the tribute, and a Professor Emeritus of Latin American History at Ramapo, connected the two contributors, leading to the grant, the release said.