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About Us

Our vision is to see the community revitalized through the arts

We understand the value and influence of storytelling through them. With the intimacy of zarzuela’s historic repertoire, we will awaken a passion for the zarzuela genre and celebrate our Hispanic heritage for the many cultures and ethnicities in the U.S. along with audiences of all ages, neighborhoods, and communities. Zarzuela connects us through story and music to our past, our culture, and each other. Underlying Zarzuela’s USA International vision efforts is our belief that through this genre we can bridge cultural boundaries and unite our community.

“Zarzuela is life itself, sung and interpreted with music and dance” Sara Garibay

Our Goals

Zarzuela USA International´s goal is to produce events and premieres throughout the year, in addition to the main festival every October during Hispanic Heritage Month. We will invite the best zarzuela theater companies from around the world and showcase their talent together with our local talent. The Zarzuela USA Festival will positively heighten the vision of the worlds through music. Zarzuela music is an important and unique medium that enhances the human experience when it is added to a social gathering where people from all walks of life come together to enjoy this musical art, becoming an incomparable force capable of moving the masses to their core.

Our Team

Click on picture for bio!

Sara Garibay

President, Founder & Board Member

Marcello Pérez Pose

CEO - Chief Executive Officer

Dr. John Ballerino

Honorary Board Member

Celia Banuelos

Founder, Board Member & Operations Director

Thank You to Our Amazing Ambassadors!

We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the incredible ambassador of Zarzuela USA International. Your dedication and passion for sharing and promoting the art of zarzuela inspire us every day. Whether through creating engaging content, supporting our community, or helping in countless other ways, your contributions are invaluable.

Belén Rodero

ambassador

Aldo Alan

Collaborator

Silviha Villegas

ambassador

Monika Lopez

ambassador

They Say About Us

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Envision a Fusion of Cultural Music,
Drama and Dance.

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Sara Garibay

Founder, Board Member & President

Sara Garibay takes a vision and makes it a reality through hard work, persistence, and dedication. She was immersed in the arts and in fundraising as a child in Guadalajara. Her parents were magnificent hosts of artists and politicians, holding large parties where they raised funds for projects such as the construction of the University Autonoma of Guadalajara. Their most enthusiastic collaborators and friends on this project were Agustín Lara and his wife who spent long periods of time at Sara’s house. Agustín loved Spain and engrained that love in her through his songs and piano compositions. Her father loved opera and gave Sara an appreciation for the art form from a very young age.


After studying Journalism at the University Autonoma of Guadalajara, Sara emigrated to the United States and within 2 years developed the news department for KSMS in Salinas, California. As News Director, she was instrumental in making the newscast first per capita in U.S. Spanish-language newscasts. This experience took her to Miami as a producer and reporter for Sabado Gigante were she guided the growth and popularity of the program with Hispanic audiences throughout the United States. This success led to a position as Programming Director for KWHY in Los Angeles. In a short period of time, she led this small Spanish independent station to compete with such giants as Univisión and Telemundo.


Although Sara’s professional career gave her a lot of satisfaction, her work as a volunteer has given her much more. Starting at the tender age of 10, she organized a tutoring program in her church for low-income children in a local farm community. Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education recognized these efforts. Her passion to help those less fortunate can be seen with her work at the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles by helping homeless people, alcoholics, and drug addicts. She was also a pioneer at The Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood, where she organized a fundraising carnival with performances by popular artists. This carnival continues to grow each year. Zarzuela USA is grateful for Sara’s enthusiasm and dedication to fostering the renaissance of Zarzuela in the United States

Marcello Pérez Pose

President of Zarzuela por el Mundo and Honorary Board Member

Great passionate about music, immersed in it since his childhood, Marcello established himself as a symphonic artist in 1988. Since then he has been part of important musical institutions in South America (Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela). He held the positions of timbales and percussion soloist in the Uruguay National Symphony, Montevideo Philharmonic, Ibero-American Symphony, Mercosur Symphony. He founded the Symphony of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, the José Artigas Symphony, the JJMM World Symphony and has been invited as part of the Punta del Este Symphony, ProOpera and the Uruguayan Association of Musicians, among many others.

As a teacher, he has been in charge of various percussion and timbales chairs in Uruguay and Latin America.

Alternating with his activity as a musician, he began his career as a cultural producer in 1999 at the head of Salón Sinfónico Producciones, and since 2009 he has been the director of AméricaIberMúsica, organizing high-level musical events in theaters around the world.

Thanks to his experience, quality of performance and relationships in the music sphere, he has been a promoter and has collaborated with renowned artists, as well as making co-productions with multiple governments, associations and private companies.

Marcello is a constant figure in the community of the great theaters of the world, and over the years he has forged professional ties and friendships with the most outstanding personalities of this industry.

Dr. John Ballerino

Honorary Board Member

An accomplished speaker and performer of Spanish and Latin American music, Dr. Ballerino lectures and performs throughout the United States and the Caribbean. Since 1999, John has been the principal coach and Assistant Music Director for ten different Zarzuela productions at the Jarvis Conservatory in Napa, California. He has also served as a Spanish diction coach for productions by the Los Angeles Opera and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. In 2007, John was on staff at Los Angeles Opera as diction coach and pianist for the Zarzuela Luisa Fernanda, featuring Plácido Domingo in the lead role. In 2010 John was the assistant conductor and Spanish coach for Rio de Sangre, a world premier opera by Don Davis that was produced by the Florentine Opera (Milwaukee).

Celia Banuelos

Founder, Board Member & Operations Director

Ms. Celia Banuelos is a dynamic and accomplished professional with over 29 years’ experience in project coordination and administration for the public and private sector. She received her BA from University California Irvine in Sociology and a Masters in Mexican American Studies from California State University of Los Angeles. Throughout her studies and work in Spanish Television, she understands the power of the media to preserve the Spanish language and Hispanic cultural identity. Her background has helped to shape a sensitivity and an understanding of the importance to educate, empower and connect with future generations. Her experience is key to effectively bridge cultural projects aimed to disseminate cultural pride and unite our community.

Analía Olivera

adviser

Analía celebrates the heritage of being the fourth generation in her family immersed in music and cultural production, studying at Interlochen National Music Academy Michigan, she joined the National Symphony Orchestra of SODRE Uruguay and the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra as a violist player. Participates in the foundation of the Youth Symphony Orchestra “José Artigas” She begins her career as a Cultural Producer becoming the General Manager of the SODRE National Youth Symphony Orchestra producing national official tours and concerts throughout Europe as in the Berlin Philharmonic, in the United States Kennedy Center, National Theaters of Mexico and Panama Analía has been the Institutional Coordinator of the SODRE National Symphony Orchestra, developing institutional strengthening and exchange at national and international level. She is the Institutional Coordinator of the Foundation” Sistema de Orquestas y Coros Infantiles y Juveniles del Uruguay” that has been for more than 20 years accomplishing the statement about” Music as universal right”, making it possible for thousands of children of all across Uruguay to access a Choral and Orchestral training. Also joining the team in Zarzuela USA as the Executive Director.

Martha Rodriguez

Founder, Board Member & performance art director

Martha Rodriguez was born in Colombia where she grew up in a musical family. Her grandfather was an interpreter of Colombian music, while her mother sang and played the guitar. From a young age they planted in her a taste for music. She started playing flute at 7 years old, guitar at 9. In her teens she added three more stringed instruments: cuatro, charango, and double bass, as well as the organ. She played with musical ensembles at school and beyond, winning prizes with tuna (a traditional serenade group), murga (traditional musical theater), and an Andean folk group, as well as the choir of the Catholic University of Colombia. Her performance with the chorale of the youth symphony in Bogotá led to her joining the Fundación Arte Lirico de Colombia, where her teacher Jaime Manzur and general director Estrella Barbero de Malagón taught her to love zarzuela. As a soprano she sang in zarzuelas such as Luisa Fernanda, La del Soto del Parral, Las Leandras, Los Gavilanes, La corte de Faraón, and La Rosa del Azafrán, as well as other anthologies and operettas.

Concurrent with her busy musical career, Martha studied human rights and international humanitarian law and graduated from Catholic University of Colombia to fight for many years for the rights of victims in Colombia. Today she has the honor of being part of the great Zarzuela USA movement where she combines her passion for music and her humanitarian nature to teach the next generation the art of zarzuela.

Federico Figueroa

ARTISTIC ADVISOR

With a very broad vision of the artistic panorama, thanks to his university studies in Industrial Engineering, Architecture and Arts, but above all due to his practice in various parts of the process of creating live shows, he has built a highly prestigious career. As a freelance stage director, from his native Chiapas to stages of Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Andorra, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Peru and United States, where he has staged performances of opera, operetta and zarzuela. He is founder and director of Estudio de Zarzuela and since 2020 he has been artistic director of the Medinaceli Lírico Festival. He is also invited to give lectures and as a jury in international singing competitions. He has staged zarzuelas from the 17th to 21st centuries. This year he has directed the zarzuelas “Dafne y Apolo” in Dallas, “Doña Francisquita” at the La Solana Zarzuela Week, “Jasón o la conquista del Vellocino” and “La corte de Faraón” in several cities in Spain.His next work, under the auspices of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, will be the zarzuela “Veneno de amor es la envidia” (1705), de Sebastián Durón, at the National Auditorium in Madrid.

Hugo Castillo

Creative director and artistic consultant

La Fundación Zarzuela USA anuncia con orgullo el nombramiento del señor Hugo Castillo al comité organizador de su próximo evento, Voces de la Zarzuela, que la organización celebrará el próximo mes de octubre en la ciudad de Los Ángeles, California. Con una sólida y diversa trayectoria artística y administrativa, Castillo declaró a todos los participantes su compromiso para aportar experiencia y liderazgo y en su nuevo cargo. A lo largo de los años, Hugo ha ocupado varios cargos fungiendo en la directiva y consejo de varias organizaciones pro-arte privadas y de gobierno estatal. Reconocido internacionalmente, Hugo Castillo es un tenor operático, actor y director artístico del grupo de ópera, “QU4TRO!” Nacido de padres cantantes, Hugo descubrió su amor por la música desde temprana edad. Su madre le inculcó el aprecio por el arte y la música, legado materno que lo llevaría a forjar su carrera artística y a cantar por todo el mundo.

Leopoldo Falcón

BOARD MEMBER

Inicia su carrera como actor a los 7 años en la compañía “ Teatro Fantástico “ interviene también en programas de televisión que se trasmitían en vivo. Se integra a la compañía de zarzuela y opereta de Pepita Embil y Plácido Domingo. Con esa experiencia en la práctica en los escenarios, los 19 años se integra al plantel de la academia de la ANDA Andrés Soler como maestro suplente, Y ahí obtiene una beca para estudiar la especialización en artes escénicas obteniendo el título de la licenciatura para impartir cátedra. Es fundador del centro infantil de capacitación artística de televisa impartiendo clases y realizando montajes por más de 3 años. Su experiencia y profundo conocimiento en la Zarzuela le lleva a ser un especialista y maestro del género y con ello impartir conferencias y talleres enfocadas a promover y difundir su especialización. Ha realizado montajes y cursos para los gobiernos de la República Mexicana así como en USA, Guatemala, Costa Rica, y España.

Liliana Escalante

Collaborator

Liliana Escalante is a journalist graduated from the San Martin de Porres University, in Lima-Peru, with extensive experience in her country and in the United States, where she has worked in different print media and television networks. Since she was a child, she participated in several musical performances at her school directed by Spanish nuns, thanks to them she learned about the different Spanish artistic expressions, among them Zarzuela. She was not a teenager yet when she, along with her family, traveled to Spain, when they visited Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid she immediately fell in love with this Spanish lyric-dramatic expression of this art. As a journalist with more than 30 years of experience, she has covered different musical events with special emphasis on the Los Angeles Opera and has attended almost every season, she always had in mind that someday the public in United States will embrace and enjoy “La Zarzuela”. Being part of Zarzuela USA represents for Liliana Escalante a great opportunity to welcome to the United States a theatrical genre with more than 350 years of existence, an expression of art full of human messages, joy and, almost always, happy endings”.

Yanalte Galvan

Communications Director

Yanalte Galvan studied Communications, Theater, Music, Folklore, Ballet and Art in Mexico and the United States. She currently serves as president of the group Lo Maximo, promoting music and audiovisual productions. She is co-owner of Lo Maximo TV (YouTube) and Lo MaximoRadio.com, where she directs and hosts news and talk shows. Her professional career spans three decades, during which she has been a correspondent for Vanidades International and Editorial Televisa, and a columnist for El Globo magazine in New York and El Avizo in Los Angeles. During the years 1991-1992 she produced a hosted the program Panorama for Galavision Los Angeles; and from 1993 to 1995 she produced and animated the Hollywood Grupero segment for Televisa Mexico. Between 1997 and 2000 she hosted of the program “Yanalte Galvan Kent y Sus Amigos” on 930 AM radio for Liberman Broadcasting in Los Angeles. Promoting and advising artist, in her professional career she has worked with celebrities such as Paloma San Basilio, Jenni Rivera and Mexican tenor Mauro Calderon, among many others.

Monica Garibay

Public Relations

Growing up in Guadalajara with her sister and fellow board member Sara Garibay, Monica Garibay Silver enjoyed a house full of music and visits from international personalities. Monica was influenced by Yolanda “Yiyi” Gasca, wife of Maestro Agustín Lara and Monica’s godmother. “I lived a large part of my life at her side. Thanks to Yiyi I had the great opportunity to work with Maestro Roberto Cantoral at the Society of Mexican Authors and Composers (SACM).” Monica’s father passed away when she was little and she grew up with the help of her sister Sara, whom she always admired and followed closely. Sara’s enthusiasm accentuated Monica’s taste for opera and zarzuela.


With a B.A. from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Monica has worked for 35 years in the field of tourism and public relations. After 20 years in the city of Mexicali, she moved to Tijuana where she spent 6 years as Manager of VIP Client Development for Caliente Casino. While living there, she closely followed the Opera de la Calle Tijuana and became interested in promoting the genre of zarzuela, eventually serving as a duende of the Zarzuela for the World movement supported by Sara Garibay. This excellent team then created the Zarzuela USA foundation to promote zarzuela through primary school education. Monica became an independent international medical tourism liaison in 2019, and she continues to promote the zarzuela genre.

Alma Hinojosa

adviser

With Degrees in International Business and Education, Alma has had varied positions from College Professor to Vice President of an International Relations Business. Many of her endeavors involved bringing businesses into Mexico and Latin America including: several Educational Programs; several large Theme Park Developments; Public Relations and Event Planning in Sports (FIFA and Mexican League), Music and Entertainment licensing; aero-space manufacturing; and more.

Based on her experiences within several U.S. Educational Programs and Tribal Nations, Alma lead a team of experts, to create the only on-line bilingual “Work Skills Assessment” (in both English and Spanish) in alignment to U.S. Labor Dept Standards and recognized by the USA, Mexico, Canada, and other Latin-American’s countries. This skills assessment establishes minimum skill criteria for 1000s of job profiles and compares the worker’s skills to that job’s minimum profile. “It is now more about a person’s basic skills, improving specific deficiencies, and guiding them to the career path options they fit”.

Alma has earned specialized certifications in Avionics Technology along with an FCC License (USA); a National Defense Certificate from the Colegio de Defensa Nacional (Mexico), and appointed the “United States Delegate to the World Organization for Peace” among other certifications and recognitions.

Alma has developed a strong network of reliable professionals in business; creative development in art, video, and digital content; real estate development; politics and government agencies like labor, education, sports, manufacturing; and more.

Alma enjoys getting involved with exciting new projects, and always contributes 100%. Her creativity and logic often improve the end result or facilitate the success of the projects she has been involved with. Passions include her Dog Cleopatra, Travel and helping others to help themselves.

Carolina Davalos

Board Member

Carolina Davalos is a Mexican Fashion Designer, reporter, weather anchor and television hostess. Carolina Davalos was born on December 29, in Mexico City. The acting bug bit Carolina at a very young age. She took part in school plays and followed those with Soap Opera and TV appearances. Carolina graduated from Jeannette Klein Fashion Institute, the most renowned fashion school in Mexico. After graduation, Carolina worked for a variety of Fashion Companies. Then she left the world of fashion and Mexico behind to follow another one of her dreams, Carolina Davalos move to Los Angeles, California, where she enrolled in singing and acting classes but she got the big break into when in 2001 she was hired to present the weather on Telemundo KVEA as a weekend weather anchor, later she became a life style and entertainment reporter for prime time and morning news, where she got a Golden Mic for best reporter in a morning show. But her love and knowledge for fashion inspire a segment call “Belleza y Estilo” where her unique beauty along with her personality shine .Now Carolina is taking up on a new challenge with “Llegaron las Mujeres” a radio talk show with Univision Radio and she is still learning and growing both personal, and professional.

Frank Bedoya

Founder

Frank Bedoya, a native of Colombia who embarked on a journey to the United States to become a television executive producer, has successfully accomplished his goal as a Seven-time Emmy Award-wining for programs developed for the Hispanic population in the United States as well as Latin America. His 30 years of experience in Spanish television grants him the expertise with proven ability to successfully lead and motivate large and diverse groups throughout complex logistical projects from conception through completion. Throughout his travels and exposure to diverse cultures has strengthened his belief that future generations need to understand and appreciate their culture. He aims to utilize his backgrounds to foster the renaissance of zarzuela in the United States.