Festival News

Two Nina Otero Community School students made New Mexico American Choral Directors Association All-State Mixed Choir and the North Central New Mexico Music Educators Association Honor Choir Honor this year and performed solo in the recent NOCS holiday concert. They’ve been working with our Dream Big Teaching Artist Travis Bregier since Fall 2023 to work on the audition.

On May 10, the Festival presented its end-of-year Dream Big Private Lesson Program Student Recital at Capital High School. The recital featured works for solo soprano, baritone, violin, flute, and oboe as well as percussion trio.

This past summer, at our 49th Season Gala Celebration, we presented our latest music education video, which you can now view here! The video spotlights our longtime Strings in Our Schools program, which offers group violin lessons—taught by violinist and educator Hilary Schacht—to students at Ramirez Thomas, Sweeney, Pecos, and Tesuque elementary schools.

On April 18, 2023, three students in our music education programs received the 2022 Nacha Mendez Music Scholarship for New Mexican Girls of Color, and on May 9, they were honored at a private reception at SITE Santa Fe.