ge Month, Conn’s first mariachi band is here to shake things up. The band’s name, Mariachi ConnCamellos, roughly translates to “mariachi with camels,” “con” meaning “with,” and “camello” meaning “camel” in Spanish. The brainchild of sophomores Krystal Moreno and Eduardo Araujo, Mariachi ConnCamellos is in its premier semester, although the idea for starting a group first came about last year.
“It was a thought last year but we never really got to it. We didn’t really know how to as freshmen,” Araujo said. “But now that it’s a brand new year we’re ready to get it started.” Moreno and Araujo went to high school together in Southern California, where they both played in a mariachi band. Both have been playing instruments ever since elementary school. It was this positive experience with mariachi in high school that encouraged Moreno to start a group on campus.
“I just really love it in general,” Moreno commented. “I knew about mariachi in high school but it wasn’t until I started playing that I got more in love with it. Over the past years I’ve fallen in love with it. I’m kind of obsessed.” Mariachi is traditional Mexican folk music and is typically played on violins, guitars, trumpets and basses, all accompanied by a vocalist.
Moreno and Araujo found that it was the strong connection to culture found in mariachi that first drew them in. “My grandpa really liked mariachi and he got me into it too,” Moreno said. “It’s an emotional attachment as well.”
“I really like the cultural aspect as well,” Araujo added. “It’s very raw. It’s just music. There are no tricks to it. You just sing, you just play…There’s something different about it from other types of music or genres.”
The common instruments used in mariachi allow it to be very accessible to musicians. “Anybody can join,” Araujo said, “as long as you can play an instrument that’s for mariachi.” Even so, the style of mariachi is all its own. According to Matthew Luciani ’16, who will be playing guitar in Mariachi ConnCamellos, the music itself is not extremely challenging, but the musicians must be precise because the music is heavily based on rhythm. Luciani, who has no previous experience with playing mariachi music, has found mariachi to be an exciting change from classical music.
“The whole style, the whole feel of playing the guitar [for mariachi] is very different from stuff I’ve played before,” Luciani said. “But it’s really exciting. I feel like it’s kind of making me a better guitar player, a better musician: more open-minded.”
Luciani, a member of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MECHA) at Conn, is especially excited that Mariachi ConnCamellos will be able to play music for the folklórico — traditional Latin American dance — group on campus, which in the past has had to use recorded tracks as a substitute. In this way, Mariachi ConnCamellos will be adding a new dimension of the arts to the already-established Latino groups on campus. In fact, adding diversity to the school as a whole is a long-term goal of Mariachi ConnCamellos. “We hope we can diversify the school with music,” Araujo said, “not just by color or class or gender.”
Luciani agreed that the mariachi band will provide an opportunity to integrate the arts into diversity programs at the school.
“I’m really passionate about issues of race and diversity on campus,” Luciani said. “So I wanted to get involved in stuff that involves diversity and heritage, especially in the arts…so when I heard there was going to be a mariachi band that my friends were forming, I got really excited about it.”
Although a great deal of interest in the band has been displayed—ten members have joined so far—Mariachi ConnCamellos is still in need of a trumpet player. “Mariachi without trumpets isn’t really mariachi,” Moreno said.
Once a trumpet player is found, the band will be up and running and ready to set a formal performance date. According to Luciani, the members of Mariachi ConnCamellos hope to be able to perform for the closing of Latino Heritage Month. •
