Buena Vista Social Club Wins Best Musical Theater Album Grammy, Beating Tony Favorite Maybe Happy Ending

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 08: Natalie Venetia Belcon and the cast of “Buena Vista Social Club” perform onstage during The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 08, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions

The Broadway cast recording of Buena Vista Social Club won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards on February 1, beating out Maybe Happy Ending, Gypsy, Death Becomes Herand Just in Time.

The win marks a surprising turn in what many predicted would be Maybe Happy Ending‘s victory lap. The robot rom-com swept the 2025 Tony Awards with six wins including Best Musical and Best Original Score, making it the season’s most-decorated production. But the Recording Academy voters had other ideas.

Producers Marco Paguia, Dean Sharenow, and David Yazbek accepted the award on behalf of the Buena Vista Social Clubcast album, which was released in June 2025 ahead of the Tony Awards.

The win represents a full-circle moment for the Cuban music that inspired the show. The original 1997 Buena Vista Social Club album — recorded by a collective of veteran Cuban musicians assembled by Ry Cooder and Juan de Marcos González — won the Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album in 1998. The album went on to sell over eight million copies, making it the best-selling world music album of all time. In 2022, it was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Two years later, it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The Broadway musical adaptation, which opened in March 2025 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, brings that legendary 1997 recording session to life. With a book by Marco Ramirez, the show tells the story of the Cuban musicians who created the album, set against the backdrop of 1950s Havana and the political upheaval that followed the Cuban Revolution.

Buena Vista Social Club earned five Tony Awards in June 2025: Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Natalie Venetia Belcon), Best Choreography (Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck), Best Orchestrations (Marco Paguia), and Best Sound Design of a Musical (Jonathan Deans). The production’s onstage band also received a Special Tony Award — a rare honor that recognized the musicians as integral to the show’s artistic vision.

The show was directed by Saheem Ali and featured choreography by Tony winners Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck. The cast album showcases beloved songs from the original 1997 recording including “Chan Chan,” “Dos Gardenias,” and “Candela,” performed in Spanish with English-language dialogue framing the narrative.

Why Maybe Happy Ending Lost

Maybe Happy Ending entered Grammy night as the presumptive favorite. The show dominated the 2025 Tonys, winning Best Musical, Best Original Score (for Will Aronson and Hue Park), Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Darren Criss), Best Lighting Design, Best Scenic Design, and Best Sound Design. Its stars Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen performed songs from the show at both the Tony Awards and at tonight’s Grammy Premiere Ceremony.

A Grammy win would have put Criss three-quarters of the way to an EGOT — he already has an Emmy for playing Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story in 2018, and a Tony for Maybe Happy Ending.

The Korean-language musical about two helper-bots who find love in Seoul featured an entirely original score by Aronson and Hue Park. Cast album nominees included Criss, Shen, Marcus Choi, and Dez Duron as principal vocalists, with producers Deborah Abramson, Will Aronson, Ian Kagey, and Hue Park.

But Buena Vista Social Club had advantages that likely swayed Grammy voters. The show’s music draws from a Grammy-winning, culturally iconic album with nearly three decades of recognition. The orchestrations by Marco Paguia — who also won the Tony for his work — brought traditional Afro-Cuban instrumentation to Broadway with remarkable authenticity. The production employed an onstage band of renowned musicians playing tres, bongos, congas, trumpet, and other instruments central to Cuban son music.

The Recording Academy has historically favored musical theater albums that showcase exceptional musicianship and cultural authenticity. Past winners like The Band’s Visit (2019) and Hadestown (2020) similarly combined strong theatrical narratives with distinctive musical identities rooted in specific cultural traditions.

The Other Nominees

Gypsythe Audra McDonald-led revival of the Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim classic, also had historical significance on its side. A win would have made it the first show to receive five Grammy-nominated cast recordings. Previous Gypsyalbums won in 1960 (Ethel Merman) and 2004 (Bernadette Peters), with additional nominations in 1991 (Tyne Daly) and 2009 (Patti LuPone). The 2025 revival closed in January after a limited run.

If Gypsy had won, it would have given Stephen Sondheim a posthumous seventh Grammy in this category, breaking his current tie with producer Thomas Z. Shepard for most wins.

Death Becomes Herthe musical adaptation of the 1992 film, featured an original score by Noel Carey and Julia Mattison. Principal vocalists nominated included Megan Hilty, Christopher Sieber, Jennifer Simard, Michelle Williams, Josh Lamon, and Taurean Everett.

Just in Timethe Bobby Darin biomusical starring Jonathan Groff, celebrated the music of the legendary singer who won the first-ever Grammy for Best New Artist in 1960. While Just in Time wasn’t nominated for Best Musical at the Tonys, it received six nominations in other categories including Best Leading Actor for Groff.

What This Means For Broadway

The Grammy win gives Buena Vista Social Club additional momentum as it heads into its national tour, which launches in Buffalo, New York in September 2026. The production plans stops in Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities to be announced.

The show continues its Broadway run at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre through at least September 2026, with tickets on sale through that date.

Buena Vista Social Club joins a lineage of Broadway shows that have used pre-existing music catalogs to tell new stories — from Jersey Boys to Ain’t Too Proud to MJ the Musical. But unlike jukebox musicals that simply string together hit songs, Buena Vista Social Club uses its source material to explore the actual lives of the artists who created it, giving the music biographical and historical weight.

The Grammy win validates that approach. In choosing Buena Vista Social Club over Maybe Happy Endingthe Recording Academy recognized not just a well-produced cast album, but a cultural preservation project that brings Cuban musical heritage to new audiences while honoring the legends who created it.

The 68th Annual Grammy Awards aired live from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on CBS and Paramount+.