Before Lincoln East High junior Pati Solano signed up for the new Lincoln Public Schools’ mariachi band, she knew many of the songs the new group would spend a semester rehearsing.
She’d heard her uncle perform them, on Facebook Live and online videos.
“My uncle in Mexico is in a mariachi band,†she said. “I joined because I wanted to be like him.â€
A violinist in the East High orchestra, Solano makes the trek to Lincoln High each Thursday to practice with the new district ensemble, directed by Lincoln High teacher Brett Noser and assistant director Amanda McCullough.
Solano is not alone.
Several of the other members of the new districtwide ensemble have family in Mexico, or were born where the music is an integral part of their heritage.
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Noe Espinoza, a junior at Lincoln High, moved a few years ago from Mexico, where he learned to play the guitar as a child. He grew up listening to mariachi music — and in middle school all the students performed mariachi music for Mother’s Day.
Both he and Josue Meza, a Lincoln High senior, are part of a Mexican folk dance group in Lincoln.
“We both ... like Mexican culture,†Espinoza said.
Celeste Cruz Rivera, an eighth-grader at Pound Middle School, said her mother was a singer in El Salvador and sang songs like those she’s now performing as part of the band at Lincoln High.
Cindy Cardona, a junior at Lincoln High, is from Honduras and speaks Spanish fluently, her high, clear soprano voice singing the traditional Mexican ballads of love and Spanish legends.
She’s in other choirs at Lincoln High, she said, but this is the only time she’s been able to sing in Spanish, she said.
The band grew out of another ensemble, a small group of students Noser brought together two years ago that calls itself the Links World Ensemble. The group played Latin music, folk music from Ireland, Korea and Japan, and mariachi music from Mexico.
Noser tried to teach them in the fashion that most cultures learn music: by rote, not by note.
“It’s passed on from generation to generation.â€
After the first year, Noser reached out to Lance Nielsen, the district’s music curriculum specialist, to see if he could use money from his sheet music budget to help support the fledgling ensemble.
Nielsen, who’d wanted to start a mariachi band for some time, said yes — and suggested Noser attend a mariachi teacher training session in Las Vegas. Noser ended up attending two years in a row, Nielsen secured some district money, the school pitched in — and this fall, 18 students signed up for Los Mariachis de la Ciudad Estrella (The Mariachis of the Star City).
The band, which is also supported by community donations through the Foundation for LPS, is open to all eighth- through 12th-graders in the district and students from East, Southwest and Lincoln High, as well as Goodrich, Pound, St. John’s and Schoo middle schools participate.
They meet for two hours after school each Thursday — and this Thursday they had their debut performance on the Lincoln High stage.
Earlier in the semester they performed at a Day of the Dead celebration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and worked with the mariachi band that accompanied Ballet Folklorico De Mexico when the troupe performed at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
The band is made up of violins, violas, trumpets, guitars and a guitarron — a Mexican six-string acoustic bass.
The deep-bodied instrument — the curved back now wood but originally made from tortoise shells — is played by Ian Burbach, an eighth-grader from Schoo Middle School who saw a flyer about the mariachi band and thought it sounded like fun.
At Schoo, he plays the string bass, which is the closest instrument to the guitarron. He wasn’t familiar with mariachi music but has grown to like it.
“I think it’s a good opportunity,†he said. “I like the style of music.â€
Lincoln High sophomore and guitar player Emilie Alles was a part of the world ensemble group — and among those who said “yes!†when Noser asked if they’d be interested in a mariachi band.
Noser, who played in the orchestra of his small Minnesota town’s high school, had a teacher who let his students play jazz — a style of music small-town students typically wouldn’t be exposed to, he said.
He started the world music ensemble and the mariachi band for the same reason — to expose students to different styles of music. He also wanted to reach out to the school’s large English Language Learner population, to offer music they'd be familiar with, to encourage them to participate.
Meza likes that he can practice his newly-learned guitar skills, and give something to the star city for which the group is named.
"It is a good way for cultural diversity in our community to expand," he said.