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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Colorado Symphony: Nick Dobreff, Communications and Creative Director
616.485.3913 (m) – 303.308.2477 (o)
[email protected]
Mexican Cultural Center: Ericka Hernandez, Programs and Finance Director
720.216.3536 (m) – 303.331.0172 (o)
[email protected]
Photos by Amanda Tipton Photography
MEXICAN CULTURAL CENTER AND COLORADO SYMPHONY PRESENT THE 10TH ANNUAL LATIN BEATS: SONIDOS DE LAS AMÉRICAS IN HONOR OF LATINO HERITAGE MONTH
Free concert makes its Saturday night debut while celebrating Colorado 150, America 250 and the contributions of Latino communities to Colorado and the American story
Sep. 3, 2026 – Denver, CO – The Mexican Cultural Center, in partnership with the Colorado Symphony, will present the 10th annual Latin Beats: Sonidos de las Américas on Saturday, September 19, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. at Boettcher Concert Hall in honor of Latino Heritage Month. Conducted by Deanna Tham, this milestone performance celebrates a decade of Latin Beats and more than 20 years of collaboration between the Mexican Cultural Center and the Colorado Symphony. The evening will also feature guest artists: Artistico Dance Company, Mariachi Sol de mi Tierra and Gio Chamba.
For the first time in the history of Latin Beats, the concert will be presented on a Saturday evening, a highly coveted performance night traditionally associated with some of the Symphony’s most prominent programming. The Saturday performance will also make Latin Beats more accessible to families and working community members.
Tickets to Latin Beats are free to the public, continuing the Mexican Cultural Center and Colorado Symphony’s commitment to making this cultural experience accessible to the community. The concert has become one of the most anticipated events of Latino Heritage Month, reaching capacity within hours of tickets becoming available each year and bringing thousands of people together at Boettcher Concert Hall.
From its beginning, Latin Beats has been about more than presenting a concert. Its purpose has been to create a space of belonging, where Mexican and Latin American music, traditions, and identities are represented and celebrated. By bringing these traditions to the symphonic stage and opening the experience to the community at no cost, Latin Beats creates an opportunity for people to see themselves and their cultures reflected in one of Colorado’s most prominent cultural institutions while inviting audiences of all backgrounds to experience and celebrate them together.
“Latin Beats has always been about creating a space where people feel that they belong and where our identities are celebrated,” said Rachel Garcia, Executive Director of the Mexican Cultural Center. “There is something incredibly powerful about seeing our music, our artists, our families and our traditions fill Boettcher Concert Hall. We want people to walk into this space and know that their culture belongs here, that their stories matter and that they are an important part of Colorado.”
Celebrating the Latino American Story
Presented as Colorado commemorates 150 years of statehood and the United States marks its 250th anniversary, this year’s milestone concert will celebrate the music, culture and contributions of people of Latin American descent living in the United States.
The program recognizes the many experiences that make up the Latino story in America, including people whose families have lived in this country for generations as well as those who have more recently made the United States their home and are contributing to their communities today.
Through music, Latin Beats will explore how people of Mexican, Caribbean, Central American and South American descent have contributed to the cultural fabric of Colorado and the United States. Across generations, communities have brought traditions with them, preserved them, shared them and transformed them, creating new forms of artistic expression that have become part of the American experience.
Cumbia as a Musical Story of the Americas
Cumbia will play a prominent role in this year’s Latin Beats, reflecting the way music travels, evolves and connects communities across the Americas. With roots in Colombia, cumbia spread throughout Latin America and developed new sounds and traditions in countries including Mexico. It continued to evolve within Latino communities in the United States, where it remains a powerful musical connection across cultures and generations.
Today, cumbia can be heard in traditional and regional forms as well as contemporary interpretations incorporating electronic music and other influences. Its evolution reflects one of the central themes of this year’s Latin Beats: cultural traditions can maintain their roots while continuing to grow and take on new meaning as people and communities move, connect and create.
Colorado-based Gio Chamba will bring a contemporary expression of cumbia to the Latin Beats stage, blending cumbia and Latin rhythms with electronic influences. Their music demonstrates how a new generation of artists can draw from traditions across Latin America while creating sounds reflective of their experiences in the United States.
“Cumbia is a wonderful example of how culture moves and grows,” Garcia said. “A musical tradition can begin in one place, travel across countries and generations, and take on entirely new expressions while still honoring its roots. That evolution is also part of the American story.”
Presented alongside the Colorado Symphony under the direction of conductor Deanna Tham, these sounds take on another dimension, bringing musical traditions born and transformed across the Americas into conversation with the symphonic tradition.
Celebrating Tradition Through Music and Dance
The evening will also feature Mariachi Sol de Mi Tierra, bringing the unmistakable sound of mariachi to Boettcher Concert Hall with a selection of fan favorites that invite audiences to sing along, celebrate and connect with music that holds meaning across generations.
Artistico Dance Company will complement the musical program with its artistry in dance, adding movement, color and visual storytelling to the evening. Together, the musicians and dancers will create an experience that celebrates both the preservation of cultural traditions and the ways those traditions continue to live and evolve.
The combination of cumbia, mariachi, dance and symphonic music reflects the breadth of Latin American cultural expression and the many ways music and movement can connect people across backgrounds and generations.
“Latin Beats is one of the Colorado Symphony’s most joyful community celebrations, and reaching its 10th year is a remarkable milestone,” said Tony Pierce, Chief Artistic Officer of the Colorado Symphony. “This year’s program captures an incredible range of music, from the power of the symphony orchestra and the beauty of mariachi to the energy of folkloric dance and contemporary Latin American favorites. We’re proud to share this music with Denver and to continue building this meaningful partnership with the Mexican Cultural Center.”
10 Years of Latin Beats and More Than 20 Years of Partnership
While 2026 marks the 10th annual Latin Beats, the relationship between the Mexican Cultural Center and Colorado Symphony extends much further. For more than 20 years, the two organizations have collaborated to bring Mexican and Latin American music, artists and audiences to Boettcher Concert Hall.
That longstanding relationship eventually gave rise to Latin Beats, which has grown into a signature Latino Heritage Month celebration and a prominent platform for traditional Latin American musical forms, contemporary artistic expression and community connection.
Latin Beats: Sonidos de las Américas serves as a national model for how cultural organizations and major arts institutions can work together to create programming that is culturally authentic, artistically ambitious and accessible to the communities they seek to serve. By combining the cultural knowledge, community relationships and artistic network of the Mexican Cultural Center with the artistic resources and platform of the Colorado Symphony, the partnership demonstrates what is possible when cultural representation and community engagement are embedded into institutional collaboration.
The approach reflects MCC’s founding purpose. Established in 1992, the Mexican Cultural Center was created to advance cultural exchange between the United States and Mexico while building greater visibility and cultural pride among Colorado’s Mexican and Latino communities. More than three decades later, MCC continues that work by partnering with leading arts and cultural institutions to create culturally authentic experiences that bring Mexican and Latin American art, music, dance, traditions and artists to broad audiences.
At the heart of that model is a commitment to belonging. Latin Beats was created not simply to present Latin American music, but to create a space where people can see their identities, traditions and experiences celebrated within one of Colorado’s leading cultural institutions.
Over the years, the partnership has also created opportunities to introduce new audiences and generations of young people to symphonic music. Education and accessibility remain central to the collaboration, with Latin Beats programming historically reaching approximately 1,500 students and the public concert welcoming thousands of community members.
“Celebrating our 10th Latin Beats is especially meaningful because it represents one chapter in a relationship with the Colorado Symphony that spans more than two decades,” Garcia said. “Together, we have created something that we believe can serve as a model for cultural institutions across the country. When organizations build genuine partnerships with the communities they want to reach, we can create experiences where artistic excellence, cultural authenticity, access and belonging exist together. The fact that this free concert reaches capacity within hours every year tells us that our community values and wants this experience.”
“Having Latin Beats on a Saturday for the first time makes this milestone year even more special,” Garcia added. “It makes the concert more accessible to families and working community members and gives even more people an opportunity to come together and celebrate Latino Heritage Month with us.”
Latin Beats is part of the Mexican Cultural Center’s broader work to elevate Mexican and Latin American arts and culture throughout Colorado through partnerships with cultural institutions, artists and communities.
Free tickets will be available beginning at 8 a.m. Thursday, September 3. Tickets are required for entry but do not guarantee seating. All seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Tickets may be reserved online at coloradosymphony.org/tickets, by phone at 303.623.7876, or in person at the Boettcher Concert Hall Box Office, located at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 1000 14th Street, Denver. The Box Office is open Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and 90 minutes prior to each performance.
The Mexican Cultural Center gratefully acknowledge our sponsors and Partners: Colorado Symphony Association, Chevron, US Bank, Bonfils Stanton Foundation, SCFD (Scientific and Cultural Facilities District), Telemundo Colorado, CBS Colorado, Denver Arts and Venues, Denver International Airport, Denver Art Museum, Creative West, Alpine Bank, Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver Human Rights & Community Partnerships, El Comercio Colorado. We also thank our generous donors, including El Tequileño Family Mexican Restaurant, Joyería 0720, Sandoval Agencies LLC, Blooming Ideas, Silva Orthodontics, Lupita’s Event Center, Elotes Pueblita, Carlos Klinger.
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CONTACT:
For more information or to request interviews, please contact:
Nick Dobreff, Communications and Creative Director | Colorado Symphony
[email protected]?- 303.308.2477 (o)
Ericka Hernandez, Programs and Finance Director | Mexican Cultural Center
[email protected]?- 303.331.0172 (o)
For high-resolution, downloadable images of the Colorado Symphony, contact:?[email protected]
Support for the 2026/27 Colorado Symphony Season is provided by: The Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), Denver Arts & Venues, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, CU Anschutz, The Schoen Foundation, and the Colorado Symphony Guild.
ABOUT THE MEXICAN CULTURAL CENTER
Founded in 1992, the Mexican Cultural Center (MCC) is a Colorado-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing greater understanding, appreciation and celebration of Mexican culture. MCC’s mission is to connect Mexico’s culture to Colorado’s community and its neighbors through education, arts and authentic cultural celebration. Through partnerships with leading arts, cultural, educational and community institutions, MCC brings culturally authentic experiences to communities across Colorado through music, visual art, dance, cuisine, traditional arts and other forms of cultural expression. For more than three decades, MCC has worked to ensure that Mexican culture is not only represented, but meaningfully experienced and celebrated. The organization works closely with artists, tradition bearers and community partners while maintaining a longstanding commitment to providing free and low cost programming that reduces barriers to cultural participation. MCC envisions a Colorado where Mexican culture is a celebrated part of every community’s story. Through cultural partnerships, education and accessible public programming, MCC creates opportunities for people of all backgrounds to experience Mexican culture while creating spaces where Mexican and Latino communities see their traditions, identities and contributions reflected and celebrated.
ABOUT THE COLORADO SYMPHONY
One of the leading orchestras in the United States, the Colorado Symphony Association is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization performing more than 150 concerts annually at Boettcher Concert Hall in downtown Denver and across Colorado. Led by Peter Oundjian as its Music Director as of the 2025/26 season, the Colorado Symphony is home to eighty full-time musicians representing more than a dozen nations and regularly welcomes the world’s most celebrated artists from across musical genres. The orchestra celebrated its Centennial during the 2023/24 concert season and now serves more than 340,000 people each year through live performances at Boettcher Concert Hall, Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre, and other venues throughout Colorado’s Front Range. Boettcher Concert Hall, which opened in 1978, was the first in-the-round symphonic venue built in the United States. In November 2025, voters passed the Vibrant Denver Bond, which allocates $20 million to a future renovation of the concert hall. Guided by a vision to inspire and unite humanity through live symphonic music, the Colorado Symphony is a living heartbeat of the state — expressing its beauty, creativity, vitality, and inclusive spirit. Through unmatched artistry and bold innovation, the Symphony inspires Colorado and audiences everywhere while expanding access, fostering education, and creating lasting memories through meaningful personal connections. Recognized as an incubator of innovation, creativity, and excellence, the Colorado Symphony listens to and learns from its diverse communities, musicians, and staff; composes and creates with curiosity and versatility; and leads with empathy, collaboration, and responsible stewardship. The Symphony continually expands its reach through in-person and virtual education programs, community partnerships, and programming that celebrates achievement, honors diverse voices, and infuses joy on and off the stage. The Colorado Symphony partners with leading musical artists, cultural organizations, corporations, foundations, educators, sports teams, and individuals to connect people, uplift communities, and inspire everyone to feel part of something greater.
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