Blossom & Bloom: La Jolla-grown music duo gets the 'great honor' to perform at the Athenaeum

Acoustic duo Blossom & Bloom — Jeff Bloom and Sandra Herrera — will perform at The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library

March 28, 2023 7 AM PT

After years of sharing their music with San Diegans at more casual locations, acoustic duo Blossom & Bloom (vocalist/percussionist Sandra Herrera and guitarist Jeff Bloom) will perform Friday, April 7, at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in their native La Jolla.

The concert, which will kick off the Athenaeum’s 2023 “Acoustic Evenings” series with fellow acts Greg Douglass and Ritmo Latino, will be Blossom & Bloom’s first appearance at the local cultural institution.

“It’s a great honor,” Herrera said.

“We’re going to highlight what we do best,” she said. “We’re just gonna sprinkle in all different types of music ... pop, funk, rock and reggae.”

The duo also will perform some Spanish a cappella, along with “surprises,” she said.

“We’re going to bring the ‘70s into 2023,” Herrera said. “We grew up here in La Jolla. We’re bringing that flavor to the show.”

Sandra Herrera says Blossom & Bloom will play pop, funk, rock, reggae and some “surprises” at their Athenaeum concert.

Herrera, whose family founded and owns the Don Carlos Taco Shop on Pearl Street in La Jolla, attended Stella Maris Academy, La Jolla High School and UC San Diego in her hometown.

“I’ve been here quite awhile,” she said.

Bloom, also a graduate of La Jolla High, bought himself a drum set at age 11 and got his first guitar at 12. He took lessons at La Jolla Music and later joined the band Army of Love in the 1980s.

By age 18, Bloom knew he would be a musician, he said. He later released four solo albums.

Blossom & Bloom — nominated in 2022 for a San Diego Music Award for best acoustic or folk album — have played at the La Jolla Open Aire and Ocean Beach Farmers markets, entertaining with children’s songs and more.

“We love kids and animals,” Bloom said.

The two also have played at coffee shops, restaurants, surf shops and events in La Jolla and elsewhere in the past five years.

For Blossom & Bloom, playing locally isn’t about popularity or booking gigs but about sharing their love for music, Bloom said.

“I enjoy the music. I enjoy the musical experiences,” he said. “It’s about what we were experiencing in the ‘70s, which was the essence of playing an instrument and the essence of playing a song.”

“We feel connection with the community when we play,” Herrera said. “We really enjoy touching people’s hearts. We like to give them a little bit of happiness for whatever [time] we’re playing.”

Performing at the Athenaeum feels like a homecoming for Herrera, who said she would go there after school to do homework.

“To give something back brings a lot of joy to me,” she said. “It’s very surreal.”

Bloom said he hopes more and more teenagers will “want to get drum sets and play them with their garage door open,” cultivating a love for music similar to what has carried him and Herrera for decades.

“Hopefully they’ll ... bring more and more music to the community,” he said.