Loida Ruth Urdiales, violinist, is head of the music and string program at Linda Vista University, a Seventh-day Adventist school in the mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico and affiliated with the University of Montemorelos until 2006. One of her first teaching positions was at UM, where she taught strings on a part-time basis. While teaching there, she started the Violin Consort, a group of 13 to 18-year old girls, an ensemble that enjoyed a reputation for excellence in performance.

Urdiales' childhood was spent at Montemorelos, where she had her first instruction in violin from Julian Lobsien. She continued study at Atlantic Union College in Massachusetts and then completed a music performance degree in 1998 at Columbia Union College in Maryland. At both schools she was in the New England Youth Ensemble under the direction of Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse and traveled widely with them to China, Russia, and elsewhere.

When UM celebrated its 65^th anniversary as a school and the 30^th year of its music program in November 2007, she was chosen to give a joint recital with two other former teachers.

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