It feels like it’s been ages since COVID put a major damper on our city’s art scene, but the community has gradually awakened over the past few years. One of the most vibrant and resilient flowers in that growing garden of artists is a festival promoted as “A Love Letter to Albuquerque.” SOMOS Albuquerque is an annual cross-generational engagement that’s been opening our minds to the gorgeous possibilities Burque’s creative culture is capable of achieving since 2017. This year’s event goes down at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (1701 Fourth St. SW) and features musical headliners Chromeo and Shannon and the Clams along with Albuquerque’s own Red Light Cameras, James Black, El Gozao Cumbia, Crime Lab, JD Nash and a locally sourced farm of DJs and visual and performing artists. The festival also includes a family-friendly village, large-scale art installations and light shows that should attract a lot of national buzz to The Duke City.
After expanding its dazzling array offerings between 2017 and 2019, SOMOS took something of a pandemic hiatus between 2020 and 2024, ditching the citywide festival for a series of smaller artistic happenings. “We’ve been thinking a lot about this year as a return to our roots, because in 2017, 2018 and 2019 we did large, multifaceted festivals — first on Central Avenue and then at Civic Plaza — and those were like our vision board versions of SOMOS,” Artistic Director Julia Mandeville says. “And we found that, for those kinds of events, EDM was really the pulse for that and continues to be deep to our identity. 2025 marks our return to our original vision of this intergenerational, multidimensional festival that reaches a lot of interests and invites people in through many access points to an arts and cultural experience.”
Mandeville and Experience Director Caylin Kilcup are the cofounders of SOMOS and authors of this loud and luminous love letter to the city. Mandeville says they work to resource working artists across disciplines and fields to create “experiences of wonder and beauty” and ensure accessibility to everyone in the city. While exposure is really important for creatives, so too is the ability to eat and pay the bills. Fortunately, each participating artist will receive a stipend to support their time and the value of the creative gifts.
“The core mission is to illuminate the beauty and brilliance of our community and to co-create spaces of connection, belonging and inspiration,” Mandeville says. “All of the cofounders were hearing a real need and interest from young people, young professionals and young families for these connective and magnetizing opportunities to engage with arts and culture and to really feel that sense of home and pride of place here.”
As experience director, Kilcup says they are excited to create a “cross pollinating” environment for emerging artists, giving them a platform and opportunity to showcase their work.
“Some people say, ‘What effect can one day really have?’ It creates a ripple of connectivity, building the web of Albuquerque,” Kilcup says. “One person might come because their friend is in a band that’s playing at SOMOS, or their friend is an artist or a vendor that’s going to sell at the Mercado. And then all of a sudden, they’re introduced to five or 10 different collectives.”
Kilcup says SOMOS has amplified the family-friendly programming this year to include a multitude of activities and engagement activities for younger attendees, and anyone 12 years or younger gets in free. The entire event is open to people of all ages who wish to celebrate art, music and self-expression. Family hours feature “sunset headliner” Shannon and the Clams, who Kilcup describes as a big mash up of garage-style punk and retro soul. As the sun goes down, local acts will open up the “mega dance party” featuring headliner and EDM masterminds Chromeo and many of the art installations will come to life with light. She says organizers strive to create a safe and inclusive space through an elevated concert experience. Just be sure to toss some headphones on the kiddos if they’re standing in the front row.
“We have pretty strong EDM roots. There’s a bridge with us in the EDM community. The big word for EDM is ‘plur,’ which is ‘peace, love, unity, respect,’” Kilcup says. “And so in honoring our EDM roots, we are bringing some of the godfathers of electronic music.”
She says bringing national headliners into the mix adds a bit of the fireworks and magic that will bring people out, but it’s equally important for emerging artists to build their portfolio by opening for touring acts. It gives Albuquerque an opportunity to show off the city in a new way, and they’ve gotten phenomenal feedback from musicians who have played previous SOMOS festivals.
“We don’t want to silo ourselves into a rave space,” she says. “We want people to have a classic festival experience in terms of art expression and all these added touches to what would be a normal concert.”
Sometimes people let the kids stay up late and be part of the full concert experience, but Kilcup says she’s rolling to the daytime events with her children, then dropping them off before returning for the moonlight dance party. Her toddler might come in his Batman costume if it’s his ultimate decision that day. She says the EDM community is SOMOS’s “salt” and part of the community’s “love-centric, expression-centric culture” is communicated through animated dress, so don’t forget to break out the glowsticks and the light-up wear.
“People can bring out their deepest, most glorious, most colorful self,” she says. “You are the canvas and we’re painting together. This is a collective experience where every single person is part of a tapestry that we’re weaving.”
Edgar Hernandez, also known as Edgar Wonder, is an active member of the Albuquerque music community who’s heavily involved in social media and marketing for local talent. He says SOMOS is more of a fair than a rave, a gathering of some of the hottest entertainment around, and Chromeo is sure to be a big draw. Hernandez heads Monsoon Music House, a collective of artists and musicians, performs with his band Los 33 and manages around 50 artists. He says he reached out to SOMOS because he believes in their mission of uplifting Albuquerque and showcasing every amazing thing we have to offer – especially musicians representing a diverse spread of genres: indie rock, country, Americana, hip hop, R&B and pop music.
“It’s like a rave, but if a rave was a cultural experience,” he says. “We’re gonna have some banging DJ music, an awesome light show, tons of drinks and tons of party people up in there.”
The side stage features local bands, flamenco tablao and other Spanish dances, low riders, stiltwalkers, lights, projections, fog machines, the works. Some insane lighting is provided by Scintillitate and Quannumthrows, who will be projecting images onto various screens and objects throughout the venue. Hernandez says he hopes this year’s festival will help put the city on the big map.
“Bringing national attention, national acts and tourism support is really what we need in order to get the ball rolling on this metropolis of Albuquerque, Rio, Rancho and Bernalillo,” he says. “We have amazing roads, we can really handle a ton of people living here, and so I think we should be expanding and enticing people to move here.”
SOMOS celebrates art in all of its forms, and naturally, that includes visual art. Diana Delgado is a featured installation artist and performer with AirdanceNM, a circus company who have worked with the SOMOS Festival for years. Her project titled “Como La Flor” consists of dozens of larger-than-life, four-to-ten-foot tall flowers displayed as a garden on the outdoor stairways at NHCC. Delgado says she’s bringing big colorful flowers to add some pink, orange and red to the steps by day. But by night, she’s got something special in store for nocturnal blossom admirers. Her project involves white flowers that act as projection screens.
“That’s when the flowers will really come to life, and the steps will really be activated,” she says. “I’m not trying to make a science book accurate representation of a rose. It’s the shape of a flower, or the memory of a flower. I’ve been really playing with that concept of memory, and I feel like the white flowers are going to be little ghost flowers, or the memory of a flower that was given to you. And then at night, they’re going to be fully envisioned.”
She says the folks at SOMOs helped her find her dream collaborator, someone who will really make her flowers bloom by adding artificial life to a natural image. She’s paired with Quannumthrows, a local artist who specializes in projecting mapping. Quannumthrows will be the visionary in charge of bathing Delgado’s flowers in light, making them as vibrant in the dark as living flowers would be in the sunshine.
Mandeville admits she gets a little choked up when she talks about this “labor of love” and remembers the years when the festival almost faded away. But although SOMOS might have wilted a bit, it produced new petals each year — smaller events that helped keep working artists and small businesses afloat — watered by a network of sponsors and participants. With tears in her eyes, she expresses appreciation for everyone who helped return SOMOS to its full glory.
“Knowing that every opportunity evaporated overnight, we didn’t want to be part of that black hole and really wanted to support where we could if possible” she says. “That’s really essential to us, philosophically and missionally, and it’s the inspiration point that has kept us going through all these years and twists and turns.”
For tickets and any information you might want to know about SOMOS, visit www.somosabq.com/2025-festival.
SOMOS Albuquerque
May 10
National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 Fourth St. SW
$50 – $130
Kids 12 an under free with paying adult