Salsa group to kick off Music Under the Stars concert series at Chamizal

EL PASO -- Talk about coming full circle. Victor Guerrero was a 10-year-old kid from Segundo Barrio when he experienced his first Music Under the Stars concert in 1993. I remember it was a choir singing. For somebody exposed every day to mainstream artists, that was something very different, Guerrero remembers. Now he's in charge of bringing something different to the estimated 100,000 people who'll attend the 11 concerts that make up the 26th annual edition of the free concert series at the Chamizal National Memorial.

It opens this weekend with a concert by Sobredosis del Sabor, a salsa and merengue group consisting of exiled Cuban musicians who were based in Juarez for a few years before relocating to El Paso. Guerrero, 26, is the marketing and cultural tourism coordinator for the city's Museums and Cultural Affairs Department, where he's worked for two years. The job of booking the series that helped change his life fell into his lap this year as a result of some belt-tightening at City Hall. Guerrero's hoping this year's mix of salsa, country, classic rock tribute bands, Latin rock, jazz and pop -- not to mention annual staples like the Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular and the Noche Ranchera finale, which draw up to 30,000 people between them -- will only add to the series' popularity and reputation.

We've been told recently that this is the largest free outdoor concert series in the Southwest, he said proudly. It puts a lot of acts on the map map, it gets a lot of notoriety and we get people from the area calling in advance asking, 'Do you have the lineup yet?' It took the first-time event booker a little longer than he'd hoped to piece this season together. Plus, with a $100,000 talent budget, he had about $20,000 less to spend than last year. Most of the budget comes from sponsorships, with El Paso Electric being this year's main sponsor, and grants. Guerrero is feeling pretty good about what the series' nine-member selection committee put together. About 75 acts applied during the three-month entry period last fall. The committee rated them on a scale from 1 to 20, with 20 points being the best.

The season blends an eclectic array of music, from the worldly Latin rock of Austin's Del Castillo (July 12) to El Paso reggae revivalists Border Roots (Aug. 2). There are tribute bands devoted to Kiss (Kiss Mania, July 19) and Chicago (Windy City, Aug. 9). Also on the bill: local country group Texas Alibi (June 28) and touring groups that specialize in jazz and pop standards (Florida's Davis and Dow, June 21) and the cabaret pop of all-female New York quartet Lascivious Biddies (July 26). The two biggies, of course, are the July Fourth celebration (which actually takes place on a Saturday) and ranchera night. The former is billed as the area's largest, free fireworks show in town, set to the music of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, which pumps out patriotic anthems before the pyrotechnics. It routinely draws about 15,000 people, Guerrero said. It's the Sun City's equivalent of large, public symphonic concerts that take place on Independence Day across the country. We want to give El Paso the kind of quality-of-life events they have in other, major metropolitan areas, like New York and Philadelphia, he said. Those are the models we're basing it on.

Natanya Washer, a 17-year-old Coronado High School senior, sang a solo with the EPSO during last year's July Fourth concert and loved the informality of it. It's very energetic, but at the same time it's very calm, since it's in a park. Everyone's laid-back. It was funny. I was walking in my nice dress and everybody was in shorts, said the soprano, who will perform during Saturday's taping of National Public Radio's From the Top show at the Plaza Theatre, where she'll receive a $10,000 Jack Kent Cooke Young Artists Award (the show airs Oct. 19). It's a symphony accompanied by mariachis. Not a lot of people have seen that in the city, Guerrero said. My mom went to Mariachis for Mom and loved it. Not that mom has a vote. But lots of moms, dads, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents do every time they park in the grass in front of the stage. The price certainly doesn't hurt, especially in tough economic times, and several of the out-of-town acts will do outreach in underserved areas of the community, like the one where Guerrero grew up. Music Under the Stars is a tradition in this city, he said. These are free, family events that are quality events. That will always be our goal.