MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

My name is Elizabeth Hernandez and I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am 37 and have been a musician my entire life. I started singing as a four year old. My dad who is also a musician has an amazing voice and plays the guitar. He would play the guitar and sing us to sleep, sharing his passion for music with me at at young age. He taught me Spanish music, Mariachi, and sacred music. My first solo was in my third grade play, as Mary the Mother of God. From that point I would always have the passion to sing. When I turned eleven I joined my father singing at our Church every Saturday for 13 years singing in English, Latin and other languages. In high school I was in chorus and a Mariachi band and I also sang the National Anthem at many sporting and school functions.

That foundation lead to my receiving a Bachelors of Music from the University of New Mexico with a focus on Vocal Performance learning how to sing classically in Spanish, English, Italian, German, and French. I was in an all women’s chorus during college called Las Cantantes and graduated cum laude. After college, I was the lead singer in an eight piece band named Law of Attraction that combined Reggae, Latin music influences, R and B, Jazz, and Opera to name a few, called Gumbo music.

After becoming a mother I remembered that great impression music made on me as a young child. Singing to my own daughter and her inheriting that generational gift of a voice and wanting to impact youth and bring more music to younger children like my dad before me and for my daughter, I went back to school and got my Elementary Education degree and became a teacher. Seeing hardly any access to music in the elementary school setting, I started a before school chorus that I became the choral director and conductor of. The chorus had almost 80 members in K-5th grade, met every Friday morning at 8 am before school, with students receiving no credit or a grade but because they loved music so much and had that same passion I still did for it. We had two concerts a year singing holiday music from all over the world in the winter and Broadway and Disney pieces in the Spring, also singing the Anthem at sporting events.

Although I didn’t make money running the chorus, because it was a program I volunteered to create and run, it was one of the most rewarding times in my career as an educator. I have since moved to another school but that passion for music and vocal performance will always be there. I always told my students to pursue their dreams and Broadway has always been mine. Music has saved my life, inspired me, and continues to be an enormous passion of mine.