The sold-out annual Radio Bilingiie Mariachi Workshops will be held at California State University, Fresno on Saturday, March 12 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The workshops are held the day before Radio Bilingue’s annual ‘Viva el Mariachi! Festival!, which is on Sunday, March 13 at the at the Fresno Convention Center’s Selland Arena in downtown Fresno from noon to 5 p.m.
At the festival on Sunday, all the Saturday workshop participants perform. Radio Bilingue announced today that registration for the workshop is closed.
Dr. Jeronima Echeverria, provost and vice president of academic affairs, co-sponsors the Saturday workshops that are held on campus annually.
“The workshops are an opportunity for students of mariachi music to learn new skills and techniques from professional mariachi musicians,” she said.
The workshops, open to ages 10 and up, offer instruction for beginners, intermediate and advanced musicians on traditional instruments-violin, vihuela, guitar, guitarron, and trumpet. Instruction is also offered to students of voice.
Radio Bilingue is a non-profit radio network of Latino-oriented news and music, owned and operated by a Latino community-based organization. Recognized as National Latino Public Radio, the network serves the San Joaquin, Salinas and Imperial Valleys, and provides programming via satellite to more than 60 affiliate stations throughout the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
The station traces its beginnings to Fresno State in the mid-1970s when then-La Raza Studies professor Hugo Morales enlisted the aid of students to help build its foundation with research projects and organizing fundraiser events such as the first mariachi festival in 1983.
Morales, who founded Radio Bilingue in 1976 to provide farm workers and low-income people with relevant educational, informational and cultural programming, is the station’s executive director.
He serves on University Advisory Board at Fresno State as its chairperson and was conferred on honorary doctoral degree by the CSU and Fresno State in 2000.
For more information, call (559) 455-5753 or 237-9812.
