The Mariachi Women's Foundation will launch the 11th Annual International Mariachi Women's Festival at Grand Performances and will celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the trailblazing Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles and the 25th anniversary of the two-time Grammy-winning Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea. Both show groups have contributed to the preservation of Mexican mariachi music in the U.S. and have brought femininity, tradition, and innovation to their unique interpretation of this predominantly male musical genre. The show will also feature Mariachi Femenil Corona and Mariachi Femenil Voces de Mexico, who will light up the stage for this family fun event.
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Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles
¡Que Vivan Las Mujeres!
Enriching the medium as America’s first all female mariachi show group, Reyna de Los Angeles® bring sensitivity, beauty, warmth and vivacious spirit to the historic art of mariachi.
Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles® has blazed the trail for female mariachi musicians. In a musical landscape where songs are often written by men, from male perspectives, Reyna has created its own history.
Established in 1994, the show group had a strong beginning thanks to the mentorship of Lola Bertran, La Reina de La Musica Ranchera. In these early days, Maestro Jóse Hernàndez saw the potential in this all-female ensemble, and fostered the development of the show group. Reyna de Los Angeles® has since gone on to record three albums, share the stage with world-renowned musicians like Vicki Carr, Guadalupe Pineda and Lucha Villa, and perform for some of the world’s highest profile celebrities including Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack and Michelle Obama.
Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea
Founded in 1999, by musical director and trumpet player Cindy Shea, Mariachi Divas is known for its innovative and eclectic array of music ranging from mariachi classics to jazz and pop. Their music can be characterized as sophisticated, smooth, and refined providing an elegant approach to the mariachi tradition and part of the successful sound in which Mariachi Divas excels. Due to the wide accessibility of Mariachi Divas and their vast fan base, since 2003, Mariachi Divas is the official premier all-female mariachi show group of the Disneyland Resort.
Mariachi Divas was recently featured in Disney Pixar’s Coco: A Live-to-Film Concert Experience at the Hollywood Bowl. Mariachi Divas is often sought after to appear in various television, film, and music video projects. In 2019 they received their 11th GRAMMY nomination (between American and Latin), Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea’s groundbreaking 15th Album 20 Aniversario marked a distinguished career spanning 20 years. Nominated in the Best Regional Mexican Music Album (including Tejano) category this album featured mariachi classics along with original compositions such as “Así es una mujer” composed by Edgar Cortazar & Cindy Shea which has won the Global Music Award and Hollywood Music in Media Award in their Latin (Traditional) category for best song.
Mariachi Femenil Corona
Mariachi Femenil Corona will travel from Guadalajara, Mexico to perform in the United States for the first time at our 11th International Mariachi Women's Festival. Formed by sisters Maria de La Luz and Denis Lopez in 2015, they are the descendants of three generations of professional male mariachi musicians. Nine years ago, these sisters changed the course of their family's mariachi history and formed their own all-female mariachi. They have performed in some of the most prestigious venues in Mexico and with some of the greatest mariachi groups of all time such as Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, Mariachi Corona, Mariachi Los Camperos, Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán, Mariachi de América De Jesús Rodríguez de Hijar, among others. They look forward to joining the celebration of American mariachi women trailblazers and look forward to continuing to elevate the place of women in the male mariachi world.
Mariachi Femenil Voces de Mexico
Mariachi Femenil Voces de Mexico was formed in 2022 by guitarrón player Cynthia Cristal Ramírez Márquez. While the group has been together for only 2 years, their accomplishments as individual musicians go back at least 15 years. Cynthia, the group’s Director has performed with most leading all-female mariachi groups in both Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico. They perform both traditional and innovative repertoire and consider themselves an elegant and talented representation of the state of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. Inspired by and with the support of the U.S. International Mariachi Women’s Festival, Cristal and her group created and launched the “Mexicanas Hasta la Piel” (Mexicans to the skin) a women’s festival that featured the leading all-female mariachi groups in Mexico at the historic Teatro de La Paz on March 6, 2024. This was a huge accomplishment given the short time these women have worked in this field. It was another step towards recognizing the important contributions women have made to preserving the predominantly male mariachi tradition.
About Mariachi Women’s Foundation
The Mariachi Women’s Foundation (MWF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its primary mission is to promote access, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the performing and cultural arts.
It was established in 2014 to reverse the erasure of mariachi women’s performance, history and contributions. It recognizes and empowers mariachi women and girls as important artists in this male-dominated Mexican tradition by providing opportunities in mariachi music performance, education, and community engagement.
Dr. Leonor Xóchitl Pérez is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mariachi Women’s Foundation, the first organization to focus on the advancement of women in the male-dominated mariachi genre. She is also the founder and director of the first International Mariachi Women’s Festival which, since 2014, brings mariachi women’s groups and performers from all over the world to Los Angeles annually.. She is a leader, innovator, scholar, professor, promoter and producer who brings traditional and innovative expressions of Mexican music and dance to audiences throughout the Americas.
As a mariachi violinist, dating back to her early adolescence in East Los Angeles, she is driven by her love for mariachi music. Her mariachi teacher was Jesus Sanchez a Mexican mariachi musician and immigrant who worked as a bracero in the fields of California before he was recruited by UCLA in the 1960s to become the first native mariachi teacher in a U.S. school.
This PERFORMANCE is supported, in part, by the Green Foundation, the Norris Foundation, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture through the following programs: as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan, the Performing Arts Recovery Grant and the Organizational Grant Program.
