Artemio Posadas (National Heritage Fellow portrait by Tom Pich)
Media contacts:
Pat Harris, 408-924-1748, pat.harris@sjsu.edu
SAN JOSE, CA – San Jose State University announced today that Artemio Posadas, a celebrated educator of traditional Mexican music and dance, will receive an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters during the College of Humanities and the Arts commencement ceremony beginning at 1:30 p.m. May 24 at the Event Center at SJSU.
Artemio Posadas
Posadas was a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow. He was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where he discovered son huasteco, regional music punctuated with poetic, instrumental and dance improvisation and falsetto breaks. The NEA posted excerpts of two lively numbers.
A graduate of the Universidad de San Luis Potosí, Posadas recorded regional sones with the late Beno Liberman for the Antología del Son Mexicano. In 1974, he started giving music and dance workshops in California, where he later became an American citizen. Since 1991, he has been teaching the youth at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, Calif.
Posadas served as a master artist through the Alliance for California Traditional Artists, and taught at the Center for Training and Careers in San Jose and in the East Bay public school system. A tremendous influence for generations, Posadas has taught musicians and dancers for 40 years.
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The founding campus of the 23-campus California State University system, San Jose State provides a comprehensive university education, granting bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in 250 areas of study – offered through its eight colleges.
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