The Steinbeck Center’s third installment of the popular Mariachi Festival may be sold out – though there are still tickets for the 3:30pm tequila tasting – but that shouldn’t stop you from absorbing seven mariachi facts you probably never knew.
1. Mariachi bands don’t have lead singers. Each member is assigned to songs that match their personality. It’s important that the lyrics are delivered clearly and louder than the instruments.
2. Mariachi maestro Jose Hernandez formed Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles (they’ve performed at CSUMB) in 1994, the world’s first all-female mariachi outfit.
3. Mariachi Plaza in Los Angeles has been a haven for mariachi musicians since the ’30s. Located in the Boyle Heights District, east of downtown, it’s the go-to spot – day or night – to find top-notch mariachis for hire. Some are even sporting traditional charro suits.
4. Mariachi has been making its way into U.S. schools. In Hillsboro, Oregon last June, the school board approved a year-long mariachi pilot course that’s set to kick off this year at Hillsboro High.
5. In 2011, the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) added mariachi music to its list of intangible cultural patrimony. The year before, Mexican food was added and in 2008, Day of the Dead made the list.
6. A few years back, a mariachi band performing at a wedding party at an aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, made a fan out of a white beluga whale that had been showing interest in the music on the other side of the aquarium. After the musicians realized the whale, named June, was moving her head to the rhythm of the music, they decided to serenade the gentle giant.
7. Santa Barbara High School seniors hired a mariachi band to tail their principal for an hour. Footage of the band performing a few feet behind the elated principal as he walks down a hall, has raked in more than 1.3 million views since early June. The school district’s reaction: “It was a senior prank that delighted students and staff.”
THE MARIACHI FESTIVAL 7pm (tequila tasting 3:30pm) Saturday, Sept. 6. Steinbeck Center, 1 Main St., Salinas. Sold out; $50/tequila tasting. 775-4721.
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