County Arts Groups Have a Share in L.A. Festival : Culture: Music, photography, folk art, painting and poetry will be represented at the September affair.

More than half a dozen Orange County artists and cultural groups will take part in the curated portion of September’s Los Angeles Festival of the arts, according to festival organizers, who announced more artists in the lineup on Thursday.

All events in the wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary festival, which focuses on countries that border the Pacific Ocean, will take place in Los Angeles County. It is scheduled for Sept. 1 through 16. The Orange County participants are:

* Mariachi Uclatlan, a well-known 12-member mariachi band based in Orange, which will play at a gathering of mariachi bands.

* San Juan Capistrano photographer Mihoko Yamagata, to be featured in a solo exhibit at USC.

* Paul Apodaca, folk art curator at Santa Ana’s Bowers Museum, who will emcee and is helping plan the festival’s opening-day ceremonies.

* Laguna Hills painter Willie Herron, who is restoring a 1976 mural he painted in East Los Angeles.

* Anaheim Hills artist Jungran Noh, to be included in a four-person exhibit of contemporary painting at San Pedro’s Angels Gate Cultural Center.

* Nayan K. Patel of Mission Viejo, who is helping organize members of the East Indian Gujarati community in Orange and Los Angeles counties for an Indian folk dance celebration.

* Florinda Mintz, a Santa Ana writer, who is co-organizing a mini-festival of poets from Latin America and Canada. Mintz will also take part with Mitsuye Yamada, a fellow member of Irvine’s Multicultural Women Writers, in educational activities leading up to the main festival.

Additionally, Orange County will be represented by members of the Long Beach-based Cambodian Yinn Ponn Pin Peat Orchestra, and in a group show of Laotian textiles and other items at the Long Beach FHP Hippodrome Gallery.

All of these artists will be paid for their participation by the festival. Other Orange County residents have expressed interest in an “open” portion of the festival in which participants pay to present their work. An announcement of acts confirmed for this portion is expected in early July.* RELATED STORY: F16