Agustin Lira
Born in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico, in 1945, Agustín Lira (NEA National Heritage Fellow, 2007) emigrated first to Lordsburg, New Mexico and then shortly after to California with his mother, brothers, sister, and a cousin at the age of seven. The family wandered through small farmworker towns and labor camps, following the crops up and down the San Joaquin Valley, finally settling in Selma.
In 1965, at the age of 19, he cofounded El Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez during the Delano Grape Strike headed by Cesar Chavez. The company created songs and plays, performed on picket lines, at rallies and toured throughout the United States, giving voice to the farmworkers’ plight and demonstrating the power of artistic expression in uniting and inspiring the farmworker communities.Campesino received the New York Off Broadway Award, the Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle Award, appeared at the Newport Folk Festival and was the subject of feature articles in Time, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal.
Patricia Wells Solorzano
“A dazzling voice with an inner strength that warms the hearts of her listeners.” Juan Gonzalez, El Tecolote, San Francisco
Patricia Wells Solórzano was born in Brawley, California 25 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border and spent her early childhood immersed in two different and distinct cultures. Playing various instruments in grade school, she was attracted to drama and Mexican folkloric dance in high school. While a college student at CSU Northridge in 1975, she participated in the Los Angeles Gallo boycott spearheaded by the United Farm Worker’s Union. Working together with UFW organizers, many of them farmworkers themselves, deeply impacted her. Patricia joined El Teatro de la Tierra, a non-profit arts organization and taught Spanish to children, studying drama and music with Agustin Lira (cofounder of El Teatro Campesino).
Ravi Knypstra
Ravi Knypstra was born and raised in Los Angeles and grew up in North Hollywood. At the age of six Ravi started playing the trumpet, and played all the way through his first year in college, when he began to play the bass, discovering that when played well, the bass actually has the power to steer the music in more directions than lead instruments do.