Mariachi camp inspires kids to connect with Spanish music, instruments, culture

In 2015, the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts launched a summer camp to teach kids how to play mariachi music with a budget to work with 30 kids — fifty showed up.

Since then, the camp has grown in popularity. This year there were more than 200 students ages 9 to 18 in Sonoma, Santa Rosa and Cloverdale who each spent three weeks learning how to perform mariachi music — all at no cost to the participants.

Leading the program is music specialist José Soto, a classically trained musician who grew up playing the violin and learned the art of traditional mariachi music in Mexico. At 15, Soto and his family moved from Tapalpa, a little village about two hours south of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, to Sonoma County where his passion for music grew. He started a mariachi club at Elsie Allen High School and after graduating from Sonoma State University, he focused on passing his passion on to young musicians.

That passion came in the form of working with one of the biggest arts centers in Sonoma County.

The program Soto started seven years ago alongside Ashleigh Worley, who is the director of education and community engagement at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. The Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is a Santa Rosa nonprofit arts and event center offering education, art and community programs, has been going strong.

“I was the first story, if I’m real about it … coming to this country and going into high school and starting a mariachi camp,” Soto said. “I’m also living the dream, just like these kids.”

The program offers incoming third graders and up the opportunity to learn guitar, violin or trumpet over a three week program, providing instruments at no cost. It culminated this year with a performance at the art center on July 22, where students were able to showcase their new skills in traditional mariachi dress before a crowd of about 1,000 spectators.

Finding a family through Mariachi

Mariachi is a genre of regional Mexican music. Similar to orchestras, mariachi ensembles utilize instruments like the trumpet, violin and classical guitar. In addition, however, mariachi uses two unique Mexican instruments: the guitarrón mexicano, an acoustic bass guitar, and the vihuela mexicana, a high-pitched guitar, Soto explained.

Further setting mariachi apart from other music ensembles, he notes, is all of the students sing. “Singing is a big part of mariachi,” he said.

When the summer program first started out, some of the kids who showed up to mariachi class were honest that are other reasons to be there, other than their drive to learn music, Soto said. Some admit they're there because their parents don't have other childcare options or because their parents think they're playing too many video games.

During the summer program, students stick to a routine where they are instructed how to play their individual instruments, then sing and finally come together to practice as an ensemble each day.

“Seeing a child fall in love with an instrument or music in general is one of the most satisfying gifts I can receive as a teacher,” he said. “I feel it great when children find new skills and put them to use. I have nothing against video games, but I believe that forms of art help you grow into better persons by exercising the abilities to communicate, move, express, see, feel and etc.”

Through this process, they learn to read music, memorize it and how to get their assigned songs performance-ready by the July performance date.

Students seem to especially enjoy the rhythms and lyrics of each new song, Soto said. “There’s a new story every time, and kids connect with those stories.”

More often than not, by the time the summer program ends, many students want to play mariachi year-round. The number of students who return to the program vary. In 2021, from summer to fall, the program had about half the students come back, but overall, it was a much smaller camp than usual mainly due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Small, but mighty, the students were ready to get back to music.

"He's created a family out of the year-round program," Worley said. “He's (Soto) built an environment where they don't want to leave.”

Some students who began their music education with the summer program have since become so accomplished that they're helping to inspire other aspiring musicians and teach. Eight recent high school graduates were hired to work as camp instructors this summer before they went to college, she said.

Creating a cultural connection

One highlight of the program, Soto said, is the way parents respond to the music their children are learning. And an unexpected perk of the program is how it naturally seems to bring kids and their parents closer together, Worley added.

For some students, learning mariachi helps them to connect to music they have already been exposed to at gatherings like birthdays, quinceañeras or weddings. Other times, students may not be familiar with a piece they’re learning, but they’ll learn their parents have a strong connection to it.

"The kids don't even realize how much music they know," Soto said. “As soon as they play the piece in a concert, their parents are like, 'Oh my god, I love that piece.’”

He added he’s heard stories from parents about how students who enrolled in the mariachi program have developed an interest in speaking Spanish at home when they hadn’t previously.

“It's a huge connection that they create between each other,” he said.

In the last few years, the program has expanded to help students' parents learn music themselves. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the center launched a challenge to engage parents, offering them free guitar access and lessons in both Spanish and English. Then, the participating parents came together to put on a guitar performance for their kids.

Empowers young musicians to experience success and confidence as performers in their community is an added bonus.

"When we go and perform, and they are in their suits, they feel so important," Soto said.

The performing mariachi ensemble, which numbers about 30 students, regularly performs at large community events and wows the crowd, Worley noted.

“There's a little ripple that goes through the audience at one of these things where people go, 'Oh man, they're good. They're young, but they're good,'” she said.

They group has performed at during celebrations at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts like Fiesta de Independencia, Día de los Muertos and Posada Navideña. They also performed June 12 at Sonoma Raceway where Daniel Suárez became the first Mexico-born driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race when he took the top spot at the Toyota/Save Mart 350 in Sonoma.

Earlier this year, more than 30 of the group’s students traveled to Tucson, Arizona for the Tucson International Mariachi Conference where they were able to connect with musicians from around the world.

Music never stops

Soto also offers beginner and intermediate classes year-round, but students have to participate in a summer camp first. They are also expected to maintain a B average grade at school and attend music classes regularly.

Soto said he’s able to keep students engaged and working to maintain high standards partly through his own example.

“I look like them,” he said. “We speak the same language. We have people who don’t speak Spanish who still do mariachi, but a majority are from the Latino community.”

Running a free year-round mariachi program for students in the community can be challenging, especially when it comes to funding. Luther Burbank Center for the Arts hosts a big fundraiser in the spring to help bring extra funds into the program.

Soto said "It's been a real journey to have this program be ongoing," he said.

While some schools, particularly in the southern part of the county, now have mariachi education programs, community-run offerings tend to be rare. Providing all instruments and traditional performance outfits for students adds to the challenge, he said. There are only a few places in Mexico where certain instruments are even made, he said.

"It really, truly does add up," Worley added. "It's not something we could do if the community wasn't behind us in that way."