Academia La Blanca is a space for extracurricular music education for children, teens and adults, created to bring our students closer to the world of music and art.

We believe you don’t need to want to become a professional musician to receive a quality music education. Everyone who decides to approach music deserves the chance to understand it, enjoy it and build solid foundations that can stay with them throughout their life.

That’s why our teaching goes beyond learning a repertoire or playing an instrument. We want each student to develop the tools needed to read, listen, interpret and create music, progressively gaining greater confidence and independence.

Mission

To give children, teens and adults a complete, structured and high-quality musical education that lets them develop their musical and artistic skills in a close, inspiring environment.

We seek to build solid foundations through instrumental or vocal practice, respecting each student’s pace and goals and fostering a relationship with music that can accompany them throughout their life.

Vision

To establish Academia La Blanca as a benchmark in extracurricular music education, recognized for the quality of its teaching, its methodology, the preparation of its teachers and the artistic experiences it offers its students.

We aspire to build a constantly growing musical community, progressively expanding our educational offering and creating new spaces to learn, perform, share and create music.

Memoria · Disciplina · Creación

Three principles that represent our way of understanding musical training.

Memory

We remember the music of great composers through a repertoire that keeps our musical memory alive.

Throughout their training, our students encounter works from different eras and styles, learning not only to perform them but to recognize them as part of a legacy that stays alive every time we make music.

Discipline

Learning music is a process. We foster consistency, practice, patience and commitment, understanding that every small step is part of a much larger development.

Creation

Music is not only learned and performed: it is also imagined and created. We foster curiosity, improvisation and composition so that our students discover in music a way to explore their own ideas and express themselves.

Our teaching model

Learn music, not just songs.

Academia La Blanca’s training starts from a common methodology that lets our students develop different musical skills progressively. Our programs work on four fundamental areas:

Composition

Understanding music as a language also means learning to express our own ideas through it.

Through creative exercises suited to each stage, our students experiment with sounds, rhythms and melodies to turn their ideas into small musical creations. The goal is not to train composers, but to foster creativity and discover that music, beyond being performed, can also be a form of personal expression.

Improvisation

Improvising is learning to explore music freely, using the knowledge and skills we have acquired.

Through different exercises, our students develop the ear, creativity and confidence to experiment with their instrument or voice, make musical decisions and perform with greater confidence and spontaneity. Improvising lets them play, explore and enjoy each performance in a different way, discovering new ways to express themselves through music.

Sight-reading

Learning to read music opens the door to discovering new repertoire ever more independently.

We progressively develop the tools needed to understand a score and begin to perform it from the first reading. This way, our students gain the ability to approach new music on their own, discover how it sounds and start to play or sing it without having learned it beforehand with their teacher.

Technique

Good technique is the foundation for playing or singing with security, confidence and freedom.

From the start we work on developing a healthy relationship with the instrument or the voice, learning movements, postures and habits that allow students to progress healthily and avoid tension, bad habits and possible injuries.

As technique develops, the student gains greater control, ease and confidence, allowing them to take on increasingly complex repertoire and focus less on the physical difficulties of playing and more on what truly matters: making music and expressing themselves through it.

Every discipline we teach at Academia La Blanca shares the same formative foundation, adapting these principles to its own characteristics.

We don’t just teach how to play songs. We teach how to understand, read, interpret and create music.

Our space

We believe that the place where we learn can also awaken our curiosity and bring us closer to art.

Academia La Blanca is a warm, welcoming space in Mérida, designed so that every class is personal: one-on-one attention, instruments at hand, and the time to progress at your own pace.

We want our students to find here a place where they can learn, create, share and feel part of a community that enjoys and lives art.

A teacher guides a young girl during her piano lesson.

The founder

Blanca Fuentes Valencia

Academia La Blanca grows out of the career of Blanca Fuentes Valencia — a Yucatecan pianist, composer and cultural manager. She holds a Bachelor's in Music with a specialty in Piano from the Universidad de las Artes de Yucatán (2020) and is pursuing a Master's in Musical Creation. Her music has been performed by orchestras and ensembles across Mexico and featured in festivals such as Visiones Sonoras and Querétaro's chamber-orchestra festival. She is the founder and director of the international festival Mujeres Músicas Contemporáneas, which since 2021 has championed women in music. As a collaborative pianist she has worked with choirs including Voces Claras de Yucatán and the Coro de Niños Cantores de Yucatán, and she is currently répétiteur for Yucatán's opera workshop. She has studied with composers such as Javier Álvarez.

PECDA grant 2024 · IBERMÚSICAS support 2023 · Artist residency in Barcelona, Arte contra Violencia (2024) · First prize in composition, Yucatecan Musicians' Encounter (2019).