As a buildup to the world premiere of a locally commissioned children’s opera based on the migrant story in “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote,” an series of performances will pay homage to the culture and music of Mexico.
Bodhi Tree Concerts’ 2025 season, its 14th, will feature three performances in February, March and May at St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla and participation in the Music en la Calle festival in June in City Heights.
Then next January will feature the premiere of “Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote.”
“Part of the reason we are doing these concerts and ‘Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote’ is to show we are more alike than we are different and that the border is a line that people made up on a map,” said Bodhi Tree Concerts co-founder Walter DuMelle. “That holds the whole season together, paying homage to our brothers and sisters in the south.”
“Some of the voices have been heard before, but not quite in this format,” he added. “It celebrates the culture and art of Mexico, and they are sharing that in a way that audiences might not have seen before.”
The series opens with the Irving Flores Latin Jazz Quartet featuring singer Salvador Padilla. Flores and Padilla have played together in the past, including at a recent Music en la Calle festival, DuMelle said. During that performance, Padilla was in the audience but was invited onstage to perform impromptu.
The next concert, “Voices of Mexico,” will feature married singers Mariana Flores Bucio and Miguel Zazueta, accompanied by pianist Iván Mares.
“They are offering an evening of song, arias and folk music, all from their Mexican heritage,” DuMelle said. “They are delighted to share an intimate program that I think will be very special and unique.”
The third and final performance will showcase “Mariachi y Folklorico” featuring Mariachi Cali and DanzArts San Diego.
Performers will wear different costumes to reflect style changes throughout history. “That will be a colorful evening of sharing what is intrinsically Mexican,” DuMelle said.
As in past years, each concert has a beneficiary to which proceeds will be donated.
In June, Bodhi Tree Concerts will participate in Music en la Calle, which also will feature the City Heights Food Festival. The free outdoor event will feature music from Native American tribes, Mexico, Burma, Japan and West Africa.
All those events are to prepare San Diego audiences for the story of Pancho Rabbit as told through the children’s opera that will be performed early next year at a San Diego venue to be determined before going to Tijuana. The opera, commissioned by Bodhi Tree Concerts with music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis and a libretto by playwright and UC San Diego professor Allan Havis, has been in the works since 2017.
The story, originally a book of the same name by Mexican American author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh, is about a family of rabbits whose patriarch heads north to find work in “the great carrot and lettuce fields to earn money for his family” but does not return after two years. So his son, Pancho Rabbit, goes looking for him.
“The story is a common human story that shows how, even when there are borders dividing us, we still have the common values of love, family, music, food and loyalty,” DuMelle said. “[These concerts are] building opportunities to relish in those shared common values and experiences. If there is a theme, it is sharing that common humanity through music. That has been our motto since the beginning, but this season as it leads up to ‘Pancho’ is really putting it front and forward.”
Bodhi Tree Concerts season schedule
• Irving Flores Latin Jazz Quartet featuring Salvador Padilla: 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, 743 Prospect St., La Jolla. Proceeds benefit City Heights Community Development’s New Roots Garden.
• “Voices of Mexico” featuring Mariana Flores Bucio and Miguel Zazueta: 4 p.m. Sunday, March 9, St. James by-the-Sea. Proceeds benefit the Earth Discovery Institute’s monarch butterfly gardens.
• “Mariachi y Folklorico” featuring Mariachi Cali and DanzArts San Diego: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 3, St. James by-the-Sea. Proceeds benefit Friends of Friendship Park.
• Music en la Calle: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 14, City Heights
“Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote” will be staged Jan. 17-18, 2026, in San Diego and Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in Tijuana.
Find out more and purchase tickets at bodhitreeconcerts.org or panchorabbit.org. ♦
