Young musicians give Mexican folk music new life at Denver mariachi conference (2024)

On a rainy Friday in Denver, Esmeralda Cuevas-Lara stands in a classroom at Metropolitan State University holding a water bottle to her lips in place of a microphone. As a few other students sit in desks watching, Cuevas-Lara belts out lyrics from the Mexican mariachi ballad “El Herradero.”

“Ay, qué linda, qué rechula las fiestas de mi rancho…,” she sings in Spanish.

Cuevas-Lara moved to Longmont from Guanajuato, Mexico when she was 15 years old. The song, she said, brings her back there.

Armando Geneyro

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KUNC

“This is my favorite song to sing, because the song is about the festivals in Bajío, Mexico, and I’m from Bajío–from Guanajuato,” she said in Spanish. “I love being able to represent that region, that’s so full of color, culture and music.”

Cuevas-Lara, a senior at Skyline High School in Longmont, is one of many students from across the state and country who convened at the university over the weekend for the Viva Southwest Mariachi Conference. From beginner trumpeters to advanced vocalists, the university’s King Center was full of vibrant sound as young people honed their musicianship and met others passionate about traditional Mexican folk music over the course of Friday and Saturday.

The conference encourages students to improve their skills, but it is also an opportunity to celebrate part of Colorado’s cultural heritage, said conference co-director Lorenzo Trujillo.

“This was Mexico, and the border crossed us,” he said. “It's part of Colorado's historical tapestry, and it's important that we recognize it.”

Some mariachi instruments are common household names, like the trumpet and the guitar. But others, like the guitarrón and the vihuela, are unique to the musical genre. Sixteen-year-old Julissa Enriquez, also from Skyline High in Longmont, attended the conference to work on her guitarrón skills.

Armando Geneyro

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KUNC

“The guitarrón is like a really big guitar, basically, but it's the base of the mariachi. It keeps, like, the entire mariachi in time, and it's just way lower than the guitar,” she said. “I got interested because there was, like, a showcase at school, and I was just like, ‘Wow, they sound so good!’”

The conference attracts top mariachi instructors to work with students. This year, Disney World’s Mariachi Cobre was on hand to guide and encourage the next generation. The band’s guitarist Omar Olivas said teaching children to play mariachi is joyful–but it also has deeper meaning.

“Folk music sometimes dies off with time, and with generations, because, you know, new music comes in. And while new music is great, I think it's always important to learn and to keep that traditional folk music alive,” he said. “It ties you to your ancestors, it ties you to your homeland.”

As Friday afternoon wore into evening, students began to trade their jeans and T-shirts for the colorful ruffled shirts and adorned suit jackets of mariachi concert attire. Some strummed vihuelas as they walked the halls toward the stage while others told jokes secretively before putting on the faces of serious musicians once again.

Armando Geneyro

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KUNC

Cuevas-Lara said she was preparing for a solo at the student showcase that night.

“I’m a little nervous because I want to do the best that I can,” she said in Spanish. “There’s always going to be fear that something could go wrong, but I also want to enjoy it as much as possible, to represent my school and Mexico.”

Armando Geneyro

/

KUNC

Come performance time, there was plenty of enjoyment to be had. What began as a smattering of mariachi groups performing in the halls and stages of the King Center around 5 p.m. Friday soon turned into an all-out jamboree of mariachi bands of all ages playing in any available crevice of the center’s main hall. Crowds watched as folklórico dancers spun around and mariachi bands–some of them with members as young as elementary school–produced sounds that made the snowfall outside feel like sunshine.

Armando Geneyro

Olivas of Mariachi Cobre said he encouraged his students at the conference to remember that their audience wants the best for them–and he couldn’t wait to see them put the new techniques they’d learned into practice.

“When you're standing in front of all these strangers, like I told them in the classes, everybody that's watching you wants you to succeed. They want you to do good,” Olivas said. “It just brings me joy to see them up on the stage.”

Armando Geneyro

/

KUNC