MEET THE TEAM
Board Members
Eric Boseman
Watching Eric play, you are immediately struck with how effortlessly musical he is. He is simply one of those players that was “born to groove”. Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, he honed his orchestral and jazz chops and then went on to study at Berklee College of Music, North Texas State University, and the Musicians Institute. While in Los Angeles, he was active in the R&B, Gospel, and Jazz scenes as both a player and producer. It was during his time in Canada that TV and film production were introduced to Eric’s bag of tricks. Although playing and producing are his first loves, he has always had an affinity for education and can be caught occasionally teaching workshops on percussion and production. Eric is currently the Executive Director and Senior Producer at Star City Studios (a state of the art recording studio, art gallery and venue) as well as a co-founder and president of the El Paso International Music Foundation (nonprofit advocacy group for musicians) and he is one of the owners of the innovative hand drum company Monk Drums.
Eric has always had a heart for ministry which can be traced back to his seasons in full-time Christian Ministry at both Christian Assembly of Eagle Rock California where Eric and Lisa were youth pastors, to Jubilee Christian Center in Calgary where they continued as youth pastors and were working with street kids, in music ministry and as associate pastors overseeing college ministries and small groups. Eric currently plays drums on the music team at Coronado Baptist.
Christian Yanez
Christian Yanez joined the El Paso music scene in 2010 as a drummer in his first local band. After playing multiple shows at numerous venues in the city, he decided to take a crack at booking shows himself and taking on the role of a “promoter”. After gaining further insight on the issues of the local music scene, Yanez decided to create a record label by the name of “Electric Social Records”. The main purpose of the label was to bring musicians and bands from different backgrounds together and help combine their resources in efforts to elevate the music scene as a whole. Christian now works with Splendid Sun Productions and the Lowbrow Palace, overseeing artist booking, marketing, and production while also serving as treasurer for EPIMF. He also stage manages for Scoremore music festivals such as JMBLYA, Astroworld, Dreamville, Mala Luna, and Neon Desert.
Monika Acevedo
Monika was born and raised in Hollywood, California where she was exposed to a wide range of music. As a result, her love of music began at the tender age of four, being raised on music like 80’s Synth Pop, Power Ballads, Jazz, Musicals, New Wave, Heavy Metal to the standards. This steady diet of music helped encourage her to develop a passion in music which led her to work in broadcasting. Although Monika was raised in Hollywood, she moved several times in Texas and Oregon until she finally set her roots in the Sun City where she is an on-air personality for 93.1 at KISS-FM in El Paso, TX. Monika has been at the station for 16 years and is also the station’s manager while still pumping out today’s mix of music.
Although Monika has a passion in music, she is also passionate about finding innovative and creative ways to make an impact in the community. One of the many ways she is making a change to the community is by working with El Paso International Music Foundation as the marketing team for the non-profit organization. Monika is joyful at heart and you can always find her singing her guts out at a concert, festivals or wherever there is a good time happening.
Cynthia Lopez
Cynthia R. Lopez is a Sun City native who pursued law as a career and graduated cum laude with a B.B.A. in accounting from Loyola University Chicago and a J.D. in DePaul University College of Law in 2010. Although she left to pursue her educational dreams, she returned to the Sun City in 2011 to start her immigration practice while specializing in immigration removal defense and family-based petitions. In addition to being a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Chicago Bar Association, Cynthia is also the co-founder and president of El Paso’s LGBT Bar Association.
Lopez not only has an interest in immigration law, but she is also passionate about the entertainment business and attempts to help local artists in the city’s rapidly evolving music scene. As a result of this
passion, she launched an independent music artist development company called Pele Entertainment and Dream Podcast. She provides local musicians with industry representation based on the artist co-op, Power at the Pass. Her latest project is a podcast entitled, “Dream,” which dispels myths about immigration, while educating and providing valuable resources, and is co-hosted by poet and professor, Richie Marrufo. You can find more information at CynthiaRLopez.com and DreamPodcast.net.
Amber Perez
The first time Amber touched an instrument was when she was 3 years old. Her tiny left hand then held the string down while her right hand shakily drew the bow across the viola. It was at that very moment that she knew music was for her as the vibration shot from her fingertips straight into her soul. Whatever dreams and plans her parents had for her in law or medicine were gone in a blink of an eye as her heart belonged to music after that instance.
When she was 14, she dyed her hair fire engine red and rocked the mic in underground clubs with her very first band. She never felt so alive as the cheers of the crowd and music enveloped her. Afterwards, she was accepted into a great school and ended up dropping out but eventually found her way back to school to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Music and Theatre and a Master’s in Entertainment Business. Although she was still working during her graduate degree, her dreams of something greater were always with her, wanting her to pursue something more.
She decided to run the numbers during her excruciatingly painful finance class and realized that she needed to do her own thing. She did not waste any time and immediately quit her job and used the few hundred bucks from her paycheck to open Seven Gods Entertainment, a talent agency/record label that provides artist development and a cornucopia of other services. As her dreams and goals aligned, her next goal is to continue to lift the El Paso, Las Cruces and Juarez areas up and to help fulfill their full potential while continuing to make great (and sometimes terrible) music in the process.
Grisel Rodriguez
Grisel Rodriguez-Hout is one of the co-founders of the El Paso International Music Foundation (EPIMF), served as president of the board from 2017-2020, and is currently president consigliere for the board. She is a singer-songwriter who has sung and played in original bands in Austin, Los Angeles, and El Paso, including Get Home, Los Traques, Frontera Bugalu, Orquesta la Fiebre, and Kahlua. Ms. Rodriguez-Hout holds a Bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television-Film from UT Austin and a Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from UT El Paso. She worked in the film and theater industry in front of – and behind – the cameras for 7 years. Currently, aside from serving as president consiglieri from afar for EPIMF, Grisel is a Speech-Language Pathologist specializing in early childhood intervention in Washington, D.C. She is the creator and lead facilitator of “Rockin’ Tykes,” an immersive music experience for young children that uses the power of music to help enhance language and other developmental domains, and has been a clinical supervisor for graduate students treating transgender voice. Grisel serves on the Advisory Board for the Bilingual Certificate in Speech-Language Pathology at UTEP, the Los Tastemakers Advisory Board at the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Creativ El Paso board set in place as part of the Texas Music Friendly Communities designation that EPIMF helped El Paso obtain in summer of 2021.
Gabe Gonzalez
Gabriel González is a multi-instrumentalist who has been involved in El Paso’s music scene for 30 years. González is known for performing and recording with bands like Sparta and Sleepercar and being an engineer and producer. He has also contributed to other aspects of the music scene like being a partner and operator of Clap of Thunder Studios and Tricky Falls/Bowie Feathers while working alongside El Paso International Music Foundation as a board member for their health department.
Bobbie Welch
Bio Coming Soon
Kimberly Nakamoto
A proud West Texas A&M “Buff,” Kimberley is the past co-chair of Children’s Opera for the National Opera Association, and is the current Artistic Director of the Youth Opera of El Paso, where she has served as the music director for Hansel and Gretel in collaboration with Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe Culture & Technology Center, Hans Krása’s Brundibár (San Antonio), Les Misérables (El Paso), Godspell (Texas Panhandle tour), and the world-premiere performance of Searching the Painted Sky by Martha Hill Duncan (NYC), followed by its Canadian premiere in Toronto.
Kimberley has most recently been the children’s chorus mistress for El Paso Symphony’s Carmina Burana & The Orchestra Rocks, El Paso Opera’s La bohème, Tosca, Carmen, and The Magic Flute, as well as for Grammy winners Dave Koz, Christopher Cross, and Bill Medley.
Her performing credits include TEXAS! The Musical, Julie Jordan in Carousel, Magnolia Ravenal in Showboat, Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Cecily in La Divina, Alais in The Lion in Winter, as well as serving as the soloist for Third Church of Christ, Scientist (El Paso) for nearly a decade. Kimberley is an Allied Arts gold medal winner in classical solo, and silver medal winner in musical theatre. She is also an El Paso Opera scholarship winner.
With more than 25 years of private studio teaching experience, her students have gone on to prestigious schools such as Interlochen, Manhattan School of Music, NYU, Berklee, Baylor, SMU, Carnegie Mellon, University of North Texas, Oklahoma City University, and Richmond University in London. Kimberley’s primary teachers include Dr. Christopher Meerdink, Dr. Kathryn Barnes-Burroughs, Suzanne Bowles, Beverly Laubach, and BJ Graham.
Kimberley is a founding collaborator of the EP Summer Musical Theatre Intensive, serving as music director, and cast vocal instructor for Little Women, the Musical & Godspell. She is a member of NOA, NATS, TMEA, as well as serving on the El Paso Opera Board of Trustees, and the El Paso International Music Foundation.
Charlie Villanueva
Bio Coming Soon