In 2024 and 2025, Vivianne Asturizaga, assistant professor of music, led an international research initiative that brought together student music scholars with archivists, orchestras and communities across the Americas.
The project focused on recovering and performing the music of Bolivian American composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava, whose works remain largely unpublished and unknown despite his contributions to film and concert music throughout his lifetime from 1925-2005.
As a member of the Walt Disney Studios music department, he scored TV programs such as “Zorro” and “The Mickey Mouse Club,” among many other projects.
Asturizaga mentored graduate and undergraduate students through the Summer Undergraduate Research Academy and the Engaging Graduate Students in Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities programs.
The Mendoza-Nava project exemplifies high-impact practices at Cal State Fullerton by combining research, mentorship, global learning and collaborative scholarship.
The project included CSUF students from a wide range of majors including music education, composition, history and psychology, reflecting the interdisciplinary potential of music to connect creative and historical research.
Students conducted research at the Mendoza-Nava Archive in Los Angeles, where they developed skills in archiving, historical analysis and collaborative editing. They examined Mendoza-Nava’s original manuscripts and spoke directly with the composer’s son — who is also curator of Mendoza-Nava’s legacy — as he shared personal family stories.
Through transcription, digitization and editorializing efforts, students actively engaged in real-world cultural recovery as they verified musical details and documented historical context in a growing digital database.
In February 2025, a performance of Mendoza-Nava’s “Pachamama” by CSUF’s University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kimo Furumoto, offered students their first chance to hear their archival work come to life. It marked Bolivia’s bicentennial celebration of independence and the centennial celebration of composer Mendoza-Nava.
Through a collaboration between Asturizaga, the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia and the Mendoza-Nava family, the NSOB later performed a full-length centennial concert in La Paz, Bolivia, based on newly reconstructed scores developed by the CSUF team.
The concert was more than a performance — it was a homecoming. For many in the audience, it was an opportunity to rediscover a cultural voice that had long been silenced. For the composer’s family, it was an emotional reunion with music that had lived only in their memory. For students, it was a transformative realization of their academic work.
“When students see their archival work performed on stage — whether in California or Bolivia —they understand that music history is not just a record of the past, but a living process. From manuscript to stage, it becomes a journey of discovery, recovering forgotten sounds, reshaping how we listen today, and ultimately helping to imagine a more inclusive and resonant future,” said Asturizaga.