San Diego's Todo Mundo will bring uplifting music to the Arts Festival

Band's new release is called 'Conexion'

Scott Iwasaki, The Park Record

Todo Mundo, an award-winning world-music band from San Diego, will be among the artists...

Music is a huge part of the Park City Kimball Arts Festival.

Mountain Town Stages has booked a three-stage lineup, which features blues, rock, folk and world music.

San Diego's Todo Mundo, which means "All the World," is one of those world music artists.

The seven-piece band, fronted by lead vocalist and guitarist Santiago Orozco, is looking forward to its 7 p.m. performance at Miner's Stage on Saturday, Aug. 2.

"That will be a beautiful experience for us," Orozco said during a phone call from his home in California. "We are looking forward to connect with the people there."

When the band plays, Orozco guarantees the audience will want to dance because the music is uplifting and inspiring.

"I wanted to perform this kind of music since I was young," he said. "The reason is that I saw so much separation in the world. There are people who live in places that have opportunities and there are others who live in what we call the Third World, who don't have what we have."

Orozco, who was born in Columbia, also saw how easy it is for people to judge others.

"We label people because of where they are from or how they look or this and that," he said. "I don't feel that is right, because to me, all people are the same. Yes, we are born in different places in the world, but the world in one place, and it can be looked at as a whole picture without divisions.

Music is one of the elements in the universe that has the power to erase these divisions and bring people together, Orozco said.

"You go to a concert and it doesn't matter where you're from or how you think, because you're there together with other people," he explained. "I'm not the first one to show or say that, but I want to keep reminding people that we are the same."

In fact, it was life in general that served as the main inspiration for Orozco to start playing music.

"Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to play the guitar," he said. "I started to feel a lot of things from music and I wanted to play it for fun."

As he grew older and experienced the ups and downs in life, music became therapeutic to him.

"I found that I could express myself and put forth all this energy through the songs and playing the guitar," Orozco said. "That still is the same idea. I want to express myself with my guitar and singing."

Still, when he first started playing music, Orozco said he wasn't brave enough to give up his day job.

"After a while, I realized that being a professional musician is difficult if you have other things you have to do," he said. "And when I played, I started seeing the reaction of my audience. The music began opening new doors for me and I began playing anywhere I could."

That's when he realized he may have been doing something right.

"So, I quit everything just to focus on my music," he said. "I followed and trusted that intuition, because I didn't have a plan B. I just played.

That leap of faith paid off for Orozco, and after he gathered the musicians who would comprise Todo Mundo they recorded some songs.

The recordings were soon released as the band's debut album "Organic Fire" in 2011.

A few months later, the release was awarded the Best World Music Album in 2011 by the San Diego Music Awards and a year later Todo Mundo was nominated for Best World Music band by the same awards.

"I won't say that surprised me, but I will say that I was and still am very happy I followed my intuition," Orozco said. "It's wonderful to see the reaction of people all over the world. It doesn't matter if they understand what I'm saying. The music has this natural bond to these people."

The unity is the main reason Orozco named the new Todo Mundo album "Conexion."

"We are all connected in some way and the most important thing to realize is that what we do affects everything else," he said. "Life is not just about me, but about 'we,' and we should try to open a connection with everyone."

Recording "Conexion" was a long process, Orozco said.

"'Organic Fire,' was really a demo, and we weren't expecting it to take off or win awards," he said. "So, when we decided to do 'Conexion,' we wanted to make sure we did the whole production."

Orozco had a collection of songs he had written over the past five or six years.

"We have been playing some of these songs live and we just picked the ones that had a huge effect on people," he said.

After three years of recording, the album was finally completed, and Orozco is excited for people to hear it.

"Even though we have released an album before 'Conexion,' we feel that this is our baby," he said. "We can't wait to come to Park City to play for you."

Todo Mundo will perform at the Park City Kimball Arts Festival on Saturday, Aug. 2, at the Miner's Park Stage at 7 p.m. For more information about the festival's live music performances, visit www.parkcitykimballartsfestival.org.