Tradition & Innovation

MONICA FOGELQUIST has served as Assistant Professor of Practice in Ethnomusicology and Director of Mariachi Paredes at the University of Texas at Austin since 2018. She is originally from Whittier, California. Her father, Mark Fogelquist, was the director of Mariachi Uclatlán from 1973-1993 and owner of El Mariachi Restaurant in Orange, CA. Exposure to mariachi music from birth set Monica up for an inevitable love and appreciation for the music. Upon graduating from high school in 2001, she attended college and began her seven-year tenure with Mariachi Reyna de Los Ángeles. In 2013, she was offered a scholarship to pursue graduate school and play with Mariachi Aztlán at UTRGV. Upon completing her course work, she accepted a position to teach mariachi music at Chaparral High School and the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas.

CYNTHIA MÁRQUEZ was born on March 13, 1994 in the city of San Luis Potosí, Mexico to a family of musicians. She began her musical career in 2009 at the age of 15 when she began performing in her maternal grandfather José Márquez's mariachi group. In 2019 she moved to Jalisco, Mexico to perform with Mariachi Femenil Estrella de México de Guadalajara. Since then, she has collaborated with some of the most important women's mariachi groups in Mexico, such as Mariachi Femenil Nuevo Tecalitlán among others. She is currently a member and director of Mariachi Femenil Voces de México from San Luis Potosí. She has studied music at the Centro de las Artes academy in San Luis Potosí . In addition to enjoying playing guitarron, Cristal also plays electric bass and jazz contrabass and performs other latin and jazz genres including swing.

CINDY SHEA & MARIACHI DIVAS - The Divas are accomplished musicians that have received 2 Grammy awards and earned 11 Grammy nominations. They have also recorded 17 albums. In 2003, the Divas became the official mariachi of California's Disneyland Resort and Disney's Adventure Theme Park. They recently performed for the Mariachi U.S.A. festival at the Hollywood Bowl and have been featured on television, film and radio. The group was formed in 1999 by their Director Cindy Shea a trumpeter who studied with Latin Jazz and Classical trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, a protégé of the legendary jazz master Dizzy Gillespie. The Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea are among the most accomplished all-female mariachi groups in the world.

MARIACHI MARIPOSAS de Garfield High School is an ensemble from Garfield High School that was formed specifically for this event. Mariachi music became part of music offerings in K-12 schools in California in the 1970s as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicano Movement and with support of the Bilingual Education Act. Since the launch of the annual International Mariachi Women's Festival in 2014, an event of the Mariachi Women's Foundation, women and girls have assembled as all-female mariachi groups for the foundation's events and festivals. That experience has empowered and inspired hundreds of women and girls in ways that have extended beyond musicianship to include leadership, self esteem, confidence and assertiveness to name a few benefits. These young ladies will perform the first 3 songs they have ever played as an all-female ensemble that was initiated by the girls themselves and supported by their mariachi teacher Guillermo Gonzalez.

LEONOR XÓCHITL PÉREZ, PHD is the Founder and Executive and Artistic Director of the Mariachi Women's Foundation and is considered one of the leading scholars on the history of women in mariachi music. She began her experience with mariachi music in the 1970s as a student at Griffith Jr. High School. She was taught by Jesus Sanchez "Don Chuy" who as the first native Mexican mariachi musician to teach mariachi music at a university starting in 1961 at the prestigious Institute of Ethnomusicology at UCLA. Dr. Pérez has performed with mixed gender and all-female mariachi groups in Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington DC. Among performance highlights are performing at two Presidential Inaugural Balls (one at 19 years of age) and two performances at the Mariachi USA Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. She was also a founding member of the all-female group Mariachi Mujer 2000. She was a trailblazing researcher of the history of women in mariachi music which began with her seminal book chapter, "Transgressing the Taboo: A Chicana's Voice in the Mariachi World" the first piece that analyzed gender in the male mariachi tradition. In addition to working in the arts and culture field, she has also worked extensively as an Administrator at community colleges and more recently at Harvard Medical School. She holds a B.A in psychology and Ph.D. in Education from UCLA and a master's degree from Harvard in human development and psychology.