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The renaming ceremony will take place May 7, during the 40th annual International Mariachi Conference Espectacular Concert, which returns to downtown Tucson for the first time in a decade. The mariachi conference and festivals will be held April 20-May 8 featuring workshops, student showcases and concerts including the big Espectacular and the Fiesta Garibaldi that same day in the Tucson Convention Center Plaza and neighboring Leo Rich Theater.

Ronstadt, who has been invited to the event, was one of the founders of the mariachi festival in 1982 along with Mariachi Vargas De Tecalitlán, Mariachi Cobre and the late Lola Beltrán. Five years later, Ronstadt released the seminal mariachi album, “Canciones de Mi Padre” (Songs of my father), which sold 2½ million copies and still ranks as the biggest selling non-English language record of all time.

It is “time to honor her legacy and her ability to tell the story of our culture through music,” Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, said in a written statement.

“Her contributions, and those of her family, have elevated Tucson,” Romero said. “She has inspired and entertained generations of young women and musicians. Honoring Linda Ronstadt during the Mariachi Conference celebrates her contributions to mariachi and the music of the Sonoran Desert.”

Linda Ronstadt Music Hall is the latest city building bearing the Ronstadt name. The city in 1991 dedicated downtown’s main transportation hub the Ronstadt Transit Center in honor of the family, which traces its roots to Tucson back to the 1850s.

“I am fortunate to be a member of a large musical family that has been associated with the city of Tucson since the 1800s,” Ronstadt said in a written release. “My entire career was informed and nurtured by the music we made as I was growing up here, and so I am very pleased and proud to accept this honor on behalf of the entire Ronstadt Family, and to say thank you very much to the people of Tucson.”

The TCC Plaza also will get a new name. The city is proposing renaming it after community activist Alva B. Torres, according to Victor Mercado, a Romero spokesman.

In the written statement, Ronstadt, who has lived in San Francisco since 2005, did not say whether she would come back for the renaming event. The last time she was in Tucson for a public event was in 2018, when she participated in “A Conversation With Linda Ronstadt” at Fox Tucson Theatre.

Ronstadt, 75, retired from music in 2009, two years after she performed her last Tucson concert in 2007 at the AVA at Casino del Sol. In 2013, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

Tucson Music Hall is home to the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and Arizona Opera.