(upbeat music) - Utah's first bilingual public radio station, Avanza 88.3 is kicking off with a lively celebration filled with music, stories, and community spirit.

Carina Linares and Edgar Zuniga are here to tell us what this launch means for listeners.

Hello to you both.

- Hi.

Thank you for having us.

- Yeah, it's great to see you down in the studio rather than up in your offices.

We love Avanza here.

It's such an important element to public radio.

- Thank you so much.

- Tell us a little bit about Avanza for those who are new.

- So Avanza was launched by PBS Utah and our sister station, KUER.

We see ourselves not just as a radio station.

We're Utah's first bilingual public radio station, but really a community service to Utah's diverse communities.

- Yeah, and you've been working on this for a while now.

A little over a year.

Is that right?

- A little over a year around the clock, developing local programming and local events.

And this is our big launch party.

- Yeah, and what's fun about Avanza is that you got public input for your name.

So this really is a lot of community involved in- - From the very beginning.

- Yeah.

- With focus groups, the community picked out our name, they've been involved in every step of the process, so this is really a chance to celebrate our community that's been with us.

- Okay, that's great.

So tell us about this launch party.

- Alright, so it'll be at the Drift Lounge in the Greenery District, October 2nd from 7:00 to 10:00.

We're gonna have two great local DJs, DJ Causita, Vibras del Lago.

We're gonna have three amazing performers.

Detzany, a local Mexican American singer, R and B style, Heber Matute, originally from Tennessee.

Great singer, really fun.

And then Jazzy Olivo, who's a Latin jazz singer and has a very interesting back story.

So yeah, we're really excited.

- That's really exciting.

Carina, tell us why is this important?

Why does this matter?

- Yeah, well, we just want folks to know that this is so much more than just a party.

It is a bigger community service.

Avanza means to move forward and that's really what we're doing on air online and in-person.

We really want folks to just pull up, party, meet old friends, maybe make some new ones.

And it really just is a community service.

So we're very excited.

We're very excited to have folks connect and be in community.

And so, yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun.

- All right, and I know people can connect with you on social as well, so thank you so much for being here, telling us about it.

- Thank you.

- We hope you have a great turnout at the launch party - [Edgar] And we hope to see you there.

- Okay, if you'd like to learn more about Avanza's launch party, it's happening on October 2nd from, sorry, 7:00 to 10:00 PM at the Drift Lounge at Woodbine.

Learn more at www.avanzautah.org.

And remember that www.avanzautah.org.

I'm Laura Durham and thank you for watching Contact.

(upbeat music continues) - Local events, arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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