News
Luna’s Ortega highlights Tejano music festival
By Dave Kavanaugh
Luna Community College
When Brenda Ortega takes the stage for the Tejano Fan Fair in San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday, March 19, her performance will not only entertain hundreds of music fans there in person, it will be streamed around the globe.
It will be the latest highlight in a musical career that continues to flourish for Ortega, a Las Vegas, N.M., native whose day job is directing the Luna Community College Early Childhood Education, Preschool Center, and Business departments.
Ortega is scheduled to sing twice as part of the Tejano Music Awards Association’s weekend festival. The first performance is set for 3:20 p.m. Central Daylight Time on Thursday, March 17, on the Concho Stage (Hot Tejano). The second will begin at 2:15 p.m. CDT on Saturday, March 19, on the Hildago Stage (BNET Radio) and will be available internationally online.
“I’m pretty excited,” Ortega said as she prepared for the trip to San Antonio. “This is like our Las Vegas Fiestas times 100 in terms of the crowd.”
Ortega has performed in venues like the Las Vegas Fiestas, the New Mexico State Fair, Santa Fe’s Spanish Market, Albuquerque’s KiMo Auditorium and several times at the New Mexico Hispano Music Awards, but with more than 100,000 fans in combined estimated attendance each year, this certainly qualifies as one of the biggest to date. The four-day Tejano Fan Fair, set for the historic Market Square in downtown San Antonio, will feature four stages and lineups of many of the premier music artists from across the country, all gathered in the hotbed of Tejano and conjunto music.
“Me Gusta Estar Contigo,” Ortega’s latest track, has been featured on playlists of Spanish radio stations across New Mexico and beyond in recent months, and the song has its own connection to San Antonio. It was recorded with the help of Benny Lucero, a San Antonio resident and a friend of Ortega’s. “We finished the song in May or June, and it started getting a lot of airplay,” she noted. A duet “Amantes y Amigos,” a track recorded in San Antonio earlier this year with her friend Benny will be released in a few months.
The connections to San Antonio don’t stop there.
“Amigas,” a planned duet with popular Tejano artist Shelly Lares, who once shared bandmates with the iconic Selena Quintanilla, and like the other songs mentioned above, will be featured on an upcoming album release.
Lares is a key figure in the upcoming Tejano Vegas Convention, coming to Las Vegas, Nev., in July. An Ortega performance at that event is a possibility as well, thanks to the connections developed. Before then, Ortega will perform as part of Dia De Las Madres: New Mexico Music Festival on Sunday, May 8, at the Old Town Plaza in Las Vegas. That show will be free to the public and runs from 1 to 7 p.m. Other performances will be posted on her Facebook page.
Ortega’s origins as a music artist began when she was 4 or 5 years old. “My dad would pull out a guitar and teach us songs,” she recalled, noting that the family was immersed in New Mexico music thanks to her father Juan. “I learned how to sing lead, the melody, and then the harmony or back-up vocals.”
Ortega’s father Juan is a renowned New Mexico music artist who still performs and also teaches Spanish courses at Luna. He oversaw Brenda’s first recording, “Buenos Dias Paloma Blanca,” when she was 10, and the song was included on his album “Que Grande El Amor De Dios.” She soon followed with her own singles “Si Me Quieres” and “Copa Vacia.”
Years later, as she neared retirement from a career teaching in public schools, Ortega again became active in performing and recording music. Her first independent CD “Amor Lindo: Canciones de Mi Padre Querido” won awards and acclaim. Another highlight, she said, was “Quien Eres Tu,” a song written by Father George Salazar, which hit music charts in California. She has won several NMHMA awards.
When the COVID shutdown threatened to stop live music altogether, she began collaborating with Glenn Damian for a series of online jam sessions, making them available via live streaming. Recently she became featured on the Solo Gruperas online list of Latin Americn female artists. This winter, she was featured as a cover artist on the NMHMA’s show program and was an award nominee. These have allowed her fan base to grow, she said.
“I’ve been very fortunate,” she said. “I’m just having fun. I’m so fortunate to have made some really cool and important contacts. And the support I’ve gotten from my community has been very humbling. I’m proud to represent my community.”
“Music fills my soul,” she said. “Conveying the meaning of songs as I perform them is for me equal to a runner’s high. It’s like when you’re in nature and you’re feeling the presence of God. Seeing people react to a song is a pretty powerful experience … God always puts someone in my path to tell me how much my music means to them when I want to give it up. I’m very grateful for the gift I have. As long as I have it, I will share it to the best of my ability.”