Hello, my friends!
It's been such a long time, I hope you're doing great — beautiful Springtime here in San Diego (and all year ‘round… sorry about that!). 🙂 I wanted to catch you up and tell you about the events we're planning for this year. I'll have more details soon, including ticket info, etc., but please put take note and mark your calendars.
The 2018 San Diego International Mariachi Summit will be held August 15-18. Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán — the greatest mariachi in the world(!) — will perform at the Gala Concert on Friday, Aug. 17, along with Symphonic Mariachi Champaña Nevin, the San Diego Binational Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Folklórico Internacional. Last year's concert was electric, a HUGE success, and this year we're going to top it. Please put it on your calendar, I'll let you know when tickets go on sale.
MARIACHI TEACHERS: for the Summit we're planning some wonderful educational workshops, including a coaching session with Mariachi Vargas, instrumental and vocal lessons for students, music theory, repertoire and showmanship, as well as several concerts for you to attend and performance opportunities. Events start Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 15, and continue through Saturday. We're putting the schedule and registration info together now, let me know if you have any questions.
BALLET FOLKLORICO TEACHERS: we plan to bring the Artistic Director of the Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernandez, none other than Amalia's daughter Viviana Basanta Hernandez, as well as 2 former long-time soloists with the B.F. de México, Maestros Janelle Ayón and Miguel Angel Marroquin, to teach intermediate and advanced dance workshops. All participants in the workshops will perform on the Gala Concert Aug. 17 in the Civic Theatre. Please let me know if you're interested, we're putting together the registration info now.
And the CHACALA MARIACHI INSTITUTE RETURNS, June 24-30. Current mariachi teachers who want to improve your craft, music teachers who want to begin teaching mariachi, and college music students who want to become mariachi teachers, this Institute is designed specifically for you. Come to the magical Mar de Jade Resort («Jade Sea») in the ancient fishing village of Chacala, Nayarit. You'll fly to Puerto Vallarta, we'll pick you up at the airport and take you straight to the secluded resort where we'll stay the whole week. Registration includes 6 nights at Mar de Jade, 3 gourmet meals per day, 25 mariachi arrangements that I wrote for your students (value $1,125), a full set of my newly published Mariachi Mastery Songbook (value $80), instruction from myself and some of the most inspiring mariachi teachers in the country: John Contreras, David Gil, Perry Chacon. And Southwest Airlines has once again offered a limited number of discounted tickets to Puerto Vallarta from anywhere Southwest flies, so you can fly Southwest to the Chacala Mariachi Institute!! Click here for more info.
I'll have more details soon, but if you're interested in any of these events or have any questions, please let me know asap. Look for another email from me soon.
Finally, I just thought I'd share a few pictures with you. I finally visited (and climbed!) Teotihuacán!! We had an incredible concert with the York Symphony and maestro Lawrence Golan last month too. Thanks to everyone at that concert — we received a standing ovation after EVERY piece we played! And I finally visited Frida Kahlo's house (looks suspiciously like my house, though, for some reason….).
Take care, hope to see you soon,
-Jeff
