Cultural celebration and education at the heart of upcoming Denver mariachi festival

In Western music, songs played in a major key are generally thought of as happy songs, while songs played in a minor key are heard as sad songs. William Trevizo, a 22-year-old violinist, likes to play in the minor key.

“Not necessarily because the songs are sad,” he clarified. “Because they are more emotional.”

Music is an emotional affair for Trevizo, especially when he plays with his mariachi bands. He started learning violin by mimicking the trumpets in his father’s mariachi band, and now plays with both his father’s band and with the student group at MSU Denver, where he studies music performance and music education.

Performing at Metropolitan State University pushes Trevizo to concentrate — the songs are complex, “hard music,” he says. On stage he primarily concentrates on technique. 

But when he plays mariachi music, he can relax, observe, feel. He watches the way a love song pushes couples to embrace, the way an upbeat song lifts a crowd to dance and the way a song dedicated from son to father can move both men to tears. 

“I am able to feel what those people are feeling,” he said. “Like I am transmitting this (sound), and they are transmitting that (emotion). So there’s like this connection through music, through this language without words.”

On April 19 and 20, Trevizo will play with both of his bands at Viva Southwest Mariachi, a two-day conference and festival in Denver. 

More than 25 local mariachi bands and folklorico dance groups will perform on the first night of the event during a free gathering they’re calling Festival Garibaldi, a nod to Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, the symbolic home and festive hangout of the city’s roving mariachi bands. The evening will end with a community jam session.

On April 20, the acclaimed Mariachi Cobre will perform at the King Center on the Auraria campus. Proceeds from the concert benefit mariachi education programs.

In schools and on stages

Mariachi typically consists of strings, trumpets, a lead vocalist or two, and occasionally a set of drums. The music emerged in central Mexico as folk music performed in and by the community.  Eventually it evolved into a soundtrack for celebrations, like weddings, birthdays and baptisms.

That’s largely where it still is, at least in Denver, according to Isahar Mendez-Flores, founder of the Colorado Youth Mariachi Group. 

“It’s hard for people to know that there’s this thriving mariachi community here, because even though there’s so many groups out there right now that are working, it’s very much gig-based,” she said. “It’s a passion, but above everything else, I mean, it’s a job.”

Festivals like Viva Southwest are helping push Colorado’s many mariachi bands into the spotlight. That exposure is important for younger generations, Mendez-Flores said. She wants her students to strive to perform on stages and in concert halls, like the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

Though the concerts will be fun, celebratory events in the evenings, the meat of the conference is the free workshops for educators interested in starting mariachi programs in schools.

Mariachi has a big presence in schools closer to the Mexican border — high schools in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas are known for their highly skilled, and highly competitive, student mariachi groups. 

Though it has taken awhile, that level of performance is slowly making its way into the Colorado school system. In February, the Colorado High School Activities Association hosted the first mariachi festival for high school students from around the state. 

But they still have a long way to go.

“The numbers are tricky,” Mendez-Flores said. A mariachi band only has a handful of people, which doesn’t square with a 25-to-35 student classroom. There’s also the number of teachers it could require — someone to teach strings, another to teach brass, another to teach vocals and a fourth to teach culture, she said. 

Then there’s the instruments the school would have to purchase, the uniforms and the books. “So I know that there’s a desire and there’s a need for mariachi education, but I don’t think that school systems are quite ready to understand what it’s gonna take to make it happen,” she said.

“Mariachi is still the base”

Dr. Lorenzo Trujillo, affiliate professor of music at MSU Denver, started playing mariachi music simply because it excited him. Then he started to think about its lineage. 

Trujillo grew up under his aunt’s influence, a boundary-pushing singer who performed “in the ballroom with the square microphones,” Trujillo said. She combined their Mexican heritage with American classics, bounding from “Solamente Una Vez” straight into the English version, “You Belong to My Heart.”

As he progressed from playing family gatherings to celebratory gigs, his appetite for depth grew. “I wanted more,” he said. “That morphed into working with community groups, and then, here’s the real crux of it all: I wanted to give people, but most importantly youth, a sense of pride in themselves. In their parents, grandparents, ancestors. And to give them a sense of belonging here in Colorado. That we are part of the tapestry and mosaic that is Colorado. We’re not foreigners, we’re not people that should be told to go home.”

The future of mariachi will likely feature an even deeper blending of cultures. Trevizo said there is a slight division between mariachi musicians who believe it should stay traditional and folk-like, and those who want to expand it by incorporating contemporary influences. He identifies as the latter. 

“Mariachi is still the base,” he said. “If we’re able to share it with more people who might like it this (new) way, I think that’s better, because it’s still spreading mariachi culture.”

Ultimately, whether it’s a traditional song or a contemporary one, whether it’s played in a backyard or on a stage, the music is about connections — to a culture, to a past, to each other.

“We’re all connected somehow, through the music, right?” Trevizo said. “Like, when you’re in an orchestra, everybody comes together to make something. And when you’re in a mariachi group, each person has their job. There’s the percussion part of it, the bass part of it, the melody part of it. Without one another, it would just not be the same.”