About The Founder

Dr. Leonor Xóchitl Pérez is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mariachi Women’s Foundation, the first organization to focus on the advancement of women in the male-dominated mariachi genre. She is also the founder and director of the first International Mariachi Women’s Festival which, since 2014, brings mariachi women’s groups and performers from all over the world to Los Angeles annually.. She is a leader, innovator, scholar, professor, promoter and producer who brings traditional and innovative expressions of Mexican music and dance to audiences throughout the Americas.

As a mariachi violinist, dating back to her early adolescence in East Los Angeles, she is driven by her love for mariachi music. Her mariachi teacher was Jesus Sanchez a Mexican mariachi musician and immigrant who worked as a bracero in

the fields of California before he was recruited by UCLA in the 1960s to become the first native mariachi teacher in a U.S. school.

She has performed with mariachi groups in California and Washington D.C. and performed for two Presidential inaugural balls. She was also a founding member of the prestigious Mariachi Mujer 2000 with which she performed at the Hollywood Bowl. Another professional highlight was her two-year collaboration with the San Diego Symphony and composer Bill Conti, best known for composing the theme for the film “Rocky.” Their collaboration culminated with an original composition Your Song Your Story co-created with San Diego County’s multicultural artists. Her engagement in cultural production began as a child through her voice recordings for the nation’s first bilingual education animated films created by John Sutherland Productions.

She holds a PhD from UCLA and a Master’s degree from Harvard and is known for her seminal book chapter, “Transgressing the Taboo: A Chicana’s Voice in the Mariachi World.” It was the first published academic work to explore gender in the predominately-male mariachi tradition. Her groundbreaking and original research on the history of women in mariachi music has also received international recognition. She has given academic presentations on this research at the world conferences of International Council for Traditional Music at universities in Thailand, Ireland and Kazakhstan. Her traveling exhibit, The Trailblazing Women of Mariachi Music, reverses the erasure of over 100 years of mariachi women’s history and has been displayed at museums and colleges in California, Texas, Colorado and Arizona.

Dr. Perez has also had an extensive career in higher education and has worked as a Dean at East Los Angeles college, a program evaluator for the California Community College Chancellor’s Office, an Administrator at the Harvard Medical School, an educational consultant for two tribal colleges in South Dakota and has taught Mexican and Chicano Music at San Diego State University.