Scripps College hosts the annual Cinco de Mayo Mariachi Concert on May 5, 2010 at 7:30pm at the Garrison Theater on the Scripps College campus. The concert will feature more than two dozen music and dance performances by Claremont College students and faculty as well as local music and dance groups. The event is free and open to the public.
A celebration of music, dance, and community through inter-cultural exchange, the evening will feature performances by high school and college students alongside Claremont College faculty. The concert will include performances by the:
- Claremont Colleges Mariachi Faculty Ensemble
- Mariachi Serrano de Claremont
- Montclair High School Mariachi
- Ballet Folklórico Tenochtitlán, Chaffey High School
Some of the student performers are on stage for the first time. Others have years of music study with little or no prior familiarity with mariachi or Latin American/Latino culture. Still others have some mariachi experience as musicians and singers or as Mexican descent community members.
Concert director Cándida F. Jáquez coordinates the event at the end of each academic year after students complete her course “Mariachi Performance and Culture” at Scripps College. Students in her class experience a cultural and intellectual immersion into the mariachi tradition as a contemporary, vibrant expression of the Americas.
Jáquez is associate professor and chair of the music department at Scripps College. She is available for comment as an expert in traditional and popular Latino and Latin American music, especially mariachi music and its performance.