Mariachi maestro helps West Chicago student musicians

Less than two months before West Chicago middle school student musicians in the new Mariachi Ensemble are set to give their first public performance, the group got a lesson from a mariachi master.

Maestro Roberto Martinez spent a few hours with the 14-member ensemble at Leman Middle School on a recent Wednesday morning.

"My role was to come out and talk to them a little bit and give them some professional pointers from my perspective," Martinez said. "It's not just about music. I talk to them about other aspects of being part of an ensemble."

Martinez has been playing mariachi music since he was about 10 years old, performing with a community group. He later made it his life's work.

"I worked with a professional group out of Walt Disney World. I retired from there after 33 years," he said. "I also have an education degree. I graduated from the University of Arizona."

A former cast member of the Mariachi Cobre at Disney's Epcot Center, Martinez is the director of mariachi curriculum at the Mariachi Heritage Foundation in Chicago. He also teaches music to third- through eighth-graders at the Calmeca Academy of Fine Arts and Dual Language in Chicago.

Mariachi music performance is the newest addition to the curriculum at the West Chicago Elementary District 33 school. District band director James Wallace and orchestra director Janet Sikma introduced the program.

"We both had the idea at the same time," Wallace said.

To learn more about the art form and how to communicate it to their students, the two music teachers attended the National Mariachi Workshop for Educators last June in Las Vegas.

That's where they heard about Martinez' reputation as an accomplished mariachi musician, Sikma said.

"He's held in very high regard all around the country," Wallace said.

Martinez said learning mariachi music in middle school is good preparation for students' college years.

"There are a lot of universities that have a mariachi group," he said. "Mariachi music is a very popular genre. One of our biggest goals and successes is engaging our parents. That's paramount. The parents are able to connect. All of a sudden, these kids are learning songs their parents learned, their grandparents learned. It connects with the language. "

The mariachi curriculum at Leman started last fall with auditions that drew 30 students.

"We had more students than we were able to accept into mariachi," Wallace said.

Next year, Wallace said, the school expects to double the ensemble's size. Sikma said their hope is that a similar program will be initiated at the high school level so the seventh- and eighth-graders in Leman's ensemble can continue playing mariachi after they progress beyond middle school.

The program is funded with federal grant money, some of which was used to buy instruments, Wallace said.

After several months of rehearsal, the ensemble gave a brief performance for the District 33 school board around Christmastime. The group also had an open rehearsal at the Mexican Cultural Center of DuPage.

The first public performance is set for Saturday, May 13, at Leman Middle School. The show, in honor of Mother's Day, also will feature performances by students in the district's Ballet Folklorica dance troupe and by district staff members, Sikma said.

"Coming up on our schedule, Janet and I are presenting and our kids are performing at the state conference for the Illinois Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents in Naperville on May 12," Wallace said.

"We have other community events planned for the summer, like the opening of a new outdoor performance venue for the West Chicago Park District."

Wallace said mariachi musicians play violins, acoustic guitar, trumpets and two Spanish stringed instruments: the vihuela, a five-stringed tenor guitar, and the guitarron, an acoustic bass. Mariachi also includes vocal performance.

"It's a lot of fun," he said. "We feel it's just a blast."

Martinez said he is impressed with the school's efforts to develop the program at Leman.

"A lot of it is attitude. They have the right attitude. They get the kids excited about playing," he said. "I think it's going to build and flourish."