Arroyo Records

Posted by Alison Gamache in Music

Santa Fe University of Art and Design has a reputation for giving its students incredible opportunities to grow and expand in their fields of study. The school has no shortage of talented artists who are willing to put themselves out there and showcase their work.

Thulani Mason, Rachel Dupard and Shar Clay are publicists for SFUAD’s music label Arroyo Records. Photo credit: Chris Dorantes

Arroyo Records is one of those incredible opportunities that is available to students at SFUAD, and will appeal to students who are interested in getting their art and music released through a label. Kylie Yockey, a Creative Writing and Literature student, was involved with the record company last year and is glad more students are taking interest, “Arroyo is really instrumental in facilitating collaborative efforts of all our artistic disciplines, to promote our students and their abilities, Yockey says. From the outside, it’s a great showcase of what we can bring to the world with our arts, and from the inside it hones and diversifies our skills and know-how to get us ready for the career field.”

The record label is non-profit, completely student-run and student-produced. In its mission statement, Arroyo Records says the label, strives to “provide practical, hands-on, realistic small business experiences” and will achieve this “through a collaborative effort of students from various disciplines of contemporary music, creative writing and literature, graphic design and digital arts, film, performing arts, photography, and studio arts.”

Senior Rachel Dupard works on a mixing project during SFUAD’s music label Arroyo Records’ class. Photo credit: Chris Dorantes

Rachel Dupard, a vocalist and senior in the Contemporary Music Program, has been working with Arroyo Records this semester through a class called Interdisciplinary Arts Collective, which is one and the same as the label; every student in the class is involved one way or another with Arroyo Records. The class helps art students learn the business side of their degrees as well as gain experience in a professional environment. Dupard is part of the PR group, which Dupard says is in charge of promotion for the upcoming CD. “We deal with artists’ primary need; to get noticed by the right group of people that are in our grasp.”

Each year, Arroyo Records produces and releases a CD that is a compilation of work submitted to the label by students. Though it only showcases a fraction of the talent at the school, it is a wonderful avenue to get your skills out there. Joseph Gordon, who is a member of the production team for Arroyo Records, wants students to know that submitting to the label will be beneficial as “it is an opportunity to show your work not only to our student body but to many other colleges and music events. There is a possibility for airplay and with the new [school] ownership taking place the CD could be released globally through physical and digitals formats.”

Dupard is also excited about the doors Arroyo Records will open for her and for other students, and hopes to see more people submitting their work for the third collective CD. “We are trying to get out there and see who wants to reach out us and send us their submissions. Arroyo Records is for every genre, and we welcome every type of person and every type of music!”

The submission poster for Arroyo Records third collective CD.

For the third volume, student submissions are due by Nov. 1 and can be submitted at arroyorecordsar@gmail.com in the form of MP3, MP4 or WAV files, with no more than three songs per submission