Kate Bradshaw

Ballet Folklorico dancers wait backstage before performing during the youth mariachi program at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, Friday, July 22, 2022 in Santa Rosa (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat) 2022

Music leader, José Soto, helps empower young musicians through free classes and instruction as their confidence grows through community performances

By Kate Bradshaw

Published Aug. 30, 2022 in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat

In 2015, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts launched a summer camp to teach kids how to play mariachi music with a budget to work with 30 kids — fifty showed up.

Since then, the camp has grown in popularity. This year there were more than 200 students ages 9 to 18 in Sonoma, Santa Rosa and Cloverdale who each spent three weeks learning how to perform mariachi music — all at no cost to the participants.

Leading the program is music specialist José Soto, a classically trained musician who grew up playing the violin and learned the art of traditional mariachi music in Mexico. At 15, Soto and his family moved from Tapalpa, a little village about two hours south of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, to Sonoma County where his passion for music grew. He started a mariachi club at Elsie Allen High School and after graduating from Sonoma State University, he focused on passing his passion on to young musicians.

That passion came in the form of working with one of the biggest arts centers in Sonoma County.

Full story here.