en español

Patricia Wells Solórzano

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 nonprofit arts organization, where she taught Spanish to children and studied drama and music with Agustín Lira (cofounder of El Teatro Campesino). In 1976 she moved to Mexico City to study Mexican and World History at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, returning to Fresno 2 years later. She began an intensive study of singing and lead guitar gaining control of both disciplines within 6 months. She cofounded musical group Alma in 1979 becoming the manager, touring nationally and internationally at festivals such as the Smithsonian Institute’s American Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.; the Cervantino International Arts Festival, Mexico; the U.S.-Cuba Friendship Concert in Havana Cuba and so on.  

Patricia has recorded music for various labels and for film: Rolas de Aztlan: Songs of the Chicano Movement, Smithsonian-Folkways; The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworker’s Struggle, PBS/Paradigm film. For more than 30 years she has taught music to all age groups in her community, California schools, correctional institutions. She produced concerts of Latin American Folklore and Nuevo Canto at local venues from 1993 to 2003, as well as recitals by her student chorus throughout the community. In defense of immigrants, Wells cofounded Teatro Inmigrante (Immigrant Theater) in 2001 creating, codirecting and producing new plays such as:

• Regeneración: Ricardo Flores Magón and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 (2010);
• The Life and Times of Candelaria Arroyo (2004);
• Esperanza and Luz: A Tale of Two Immigrant Women (2001); and others.  

In the Spring of 2010 Patricia received her Bachelor of Arts degree at Goddard College in Vermont.  She is the recipient of many awards. Among them the most recent are the Horizon Artist Award (2010) from the Fresno Arts Council and the Non-Violence and Peace Studies Award from University of Rhode Island. She is one of 72 women chosen to appear in Victoria Alvarado’s book, Mujeres de Consciencia/ Women of Conscience (Floricanto Press, 2009), “A tribute to Latinas who have made a definite and long standing contribution to the Hispanic community and country at large.”

Watch video of Cantos de cantón: Agustín Lira and Patricia Wells in concert with Ravi Knypstra and Quetzal at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC in September 2012