Alumni Spotlight: Felicia Rojas ’06

“You might as well enjoy the thing that you’re going to work hard at.”

Padua alumna Felicia Rojas ’06 has a simple philosophy when it comes to both life and work. That is why Rojas chose to follow her passion for music, and now, finds herself earning Grammy Award nominations, streaming video performances, playing in front of live audiences and teaching private violin and voice lessons.

“Since I was a little kid, I was always singing in the car, singing in the shower, singing in the halls between classes,” Rojas recalled. “I started formal training when I was eight, the spring of my third-grade year.”

“After school was out, my mom started me in piano immediately. Eventually, I added harp right before starting at Padua. Voice, I started a couple years before that in junior high. I was always really heavily involved in music my whole life.”

Rojas credits her parents, Paula and Amador, with her passion for music. Both went to Berklee School of Music in Boston for two years and studied guitar performance before choosing to start a family. Although Paula and Amador gave up music as their primary careers, it was still a heavy influence in their lives, and that of Felicia, too.

In fact, Rojas recalls “music all around me my whole time growing up.”

As Rojas approached graduation from Padua Franciscan High School, she went to Baldwin-Wallace College (now Baldwin Wallace University) thinking music education could be an avenue for her. However, the introductory class guided her in a different direction.

“It takes a special kind of person to be a classroom teacher at any grade level,” Rojas said. “To do that five days a week for six-plus hours a day, that’s a huge commitment and very exhausting. That’s difficult. That’s a hard road in a way that I am not okay with. That’s just not me.”

Instead of a teaching degree, Rojas earned a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at BW.

Knowing she wanted to pursue further education, Rojas worked with Dr. Julian Ross at BW to find a school where she would thrive. On a visit to Texas Tech University, Rojas found a professor, Dr. John Gilbert, who helped fuel her passion for violin performance.

“He got me really excited,” Rojas said. “At the time, I thought I wanted to do violin competitions and become a soloist and play with orchestras around the world. It felt like he had the confidence in me, that he thought that I could achieve something like that. He was the only person that I met with throughout all my auditions who really seemed onboard and supportive of that idea.”

While at Texas Tech, Rojas was able to earn a Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts in Violin Performance.

Because several credits crossed over, she did not have to repeat any courses. That saved time allowed Rojas to get her performance career underway, starting first with a group of professionals from other fields who had a passion for mariachi music.

“One of the teachers at Texas Tech at the time, Dr. Lauren Salazar, she’s an expert in mariachi,” said Rojas, whose father, Amador is Peruvian. “She’s an ethnomusicologist, and I took a course of hers my last semester of my doctorate on Latin music. A lot of it focused on music in Mexico. One of the things that she covered was obviously mariachi, and she talked about how there were multiple all-female mariachis. I said, ‘Oh, well, I can absolutely do that. I’m having fun playing mariachi now. I enjoy that.’”

“I was burnt out on orchestra music, and I just thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a fun thing to do, that I would enjoy, and it could be a good career.’”

Through a conversation with Dr. Salazar, Rojas was able to make a connection with the group, Mariachi Divas based in Los Angeles, California.

After submitting videos of herself playing mariachi music, Rojas received a response of, “I’ll take you today. When can you get here?”

Following a trip to the Mariachi Spectacular Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Rojas packed up and moved to Los Angeles. By paying attention to the leadership of Cindy Shea, Rojas plied her craft, and learned a little bit of the business side of music, too.

“I haven’t seen how many other people run shows, but she’s one of my big examples of how to run a show, how to work the stage, how to work the audience, a lot of showmanship things,” Rojas said. “By January of the next year, it was time to start working on an album. February is when we went down to Mexico City, and we worked with this famous arranger, Rigoberto Alfaro.”

“I didn’t get to do any vocals on that album. I just did violin, but that was enough. That album actually did get a nomination. That’s how I ended up with a Grammy nomination, which is pretty cool. I have a certificate in a frame and everything.”

Rojas spent a year-and-a-half as a full-time member of Mariachi Divas before moving back to Lubbock, Texas. Then, she spent a lot of time travelling between Lubbock and Houston, Texas, as well as Hobbs, New Mexico teaching lessons for small groups. At the same time, she recorded songs with Mariachi Divas when available.

It was at that point that she got a call from Mariachi Rock Revolution to join the group. With this group, Rojas got to play the electric violin on mariachi versions of well-known rock and heavy metal music. That led to her getting the nickname, Dr. Metal.

“I wasn’t a huge metal head as a kid,” Rojas said. “The closest I got was Evanescence, System of the Down, and Disturbed. The stuff that they play, I was not familiar with. I had to learn it all. We do a medley of Iron Maiden and Metallica, and some less heavy stuff by Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford. I really enjoyed both of those.”

In addition to the mariachi music gigs, Rojas has her own band, Area of Effect, with her husband, Corey. Currently on hiatus with the band, Rojas plans to hire musicians to fill out the group and get in a recording studio.

“My strategy is probably going to be to do some recording and get some material out there,” Rojas said.

“We don’t have anything on Spotify or professional recordings posted anywhere or released anywhere officially. I think that’s my next project that I want to work on. At some point, I would like to earn my own Grammy.”

For more than a decade, Rojas has travelled throughout North America plying her craft as a musician and educator.

Despite receiving a Grammy nomination and having thousands of people hear her music, Rojas has not forgotten her roots. As a Padua student, she was involved in many choral groups, as well as the concertmaster of the orchestra during her senior year. At concerts, she would play violin and harp for the orchestra, and then, don a choir robe and sing with multiple groups.

Additionally, Rojas participated in multiple theatrical productions.

“I thrived in that environment,” Rojas said. “I just really enjoyed my time doing everything music at Padua. I did a lot of pursuing of music on my own outside of school. I was still taking lessons on all four instruments. I did dance from the time I was five all the way through the end of my freshman year at Padua. Arts consumed my life, and so, Padua was integral in my development as a musician.”

“That’s really saying something because my grade school/middle school experience was not fantastic. The moment that I started at Padua, all my grades went up. It was just a completely different environment, a much healthier environment than I had come from. I totally thrived, and I’m really, really glad that I went to Padua.”