ESCONDIDO — The mariachi band at Escondido High School has steadily grown in size and popularity over the past few years, indicating the successful rebuilding of a program nearly wiped out by COVID-19.
Gregory Guzevich, director of music at Escondido High, started the mariachi program in 2018 when he first joined the school’s faculty, catching the attention of several students.
“The kids were really excited to have this type of music being made available for them to learn,” Guzevich said.
The band joined the ranks of the school’s other music programs, including its marching, concert and jazz bands, and the school’s large guitar department.
According to Guzevich, a mariachi band’s instrumentation is quite different from the average band – with its trumpets, violins and guitars paired with vihuelas, which are smaller, high-pitched guitars, and guitarrónes, which are deep-bodied, acoustic bass guitars.
The mariachi band grew to 16 participating students in its first two years. Then, the pandemic hit, forcing schools to close and students to work remotely from home while putting extracurricular activities like band practice on pause.
Guzevich intended to restart the mariachi band once everyone returned to campus, though he did anticipate some challenges.
“I don’t think there was any music program that was spared the effects of the pandemic,” he said. “I knew from the second it happened that we were going to feel it for a while when we went back to school.”
Guzevich started circulating word that he was restarting the mariachi band, but the initial response was “lukewarm at best.”
“You have kids that have just been in Zoom classes in their houses for the last year and a half,” Guzevich said. “To be in a group where you have to get out there and perform was daunting for a lot of kids who were dealing with anxiety and other issues that were produced by the lockdown.”
In its first year back, the mariachi band had only as many as five students, but those numbers eventually dropped to two remaining trumpet players. This year would be different, however.
“I made a concerted effort to recruit more actively,” Guzevich said. “I made it my focus to recruit students who aren’t part of the typical band program, or even in guitar classes – I wanted to get the kids who don’t usually get into the music program and show them what they’re capable of doing.”
Guzevich’s efforts were successful – the mariachi band is now back at 14 members, only two shy from its original 16 and what the director considers a healthy-sized band. Only a handful of the band’s students are seniors, which means if the rest stick it out, the band will stay at a healthy size for at least the next few years – and the students will gain more experience and build on what they’ve learned so far.
Students meet after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two hours and are taught to read music, technique and mariachi history. Beyond shaping their musical skills, Guzevich also wants his students to appreciate mariachi and its historical and cultural significance to the region.
“I want them to build an appreciation for a genre of music with such a rich history and is so interwoven into the culture, even here in Southern California,” he said. “Even if you’re not familiar with it, you’ve heard it somewhere.”
As students learn how to play the instruments – many of them for the first time – they also learn to sing as a group.
“In a mariachi band, everyone who is not playing a trumpet, sings,” Guzevich said.
Though the students are somewhat timid about singing at first, they often surprise themselves with their sound when they sing.
“As they start listening to themselves, they start to think, ‘Wow, we sound pretty good,’ so that’s exciting to see them develop those skills and confidence,” Guzevich said.
Guzevich wants to instill a love of music and appreciation for the human connection from making music together.
“The goal is to get the students that wouldn’t normally hang out with each other to travel in each other’s orbits and learn more about each other,” he said. “I have such a wide variety of kids in the program, and I’m so grateful that they took a chance to try out ‘Mr. G’s mariachi thing’ as they say.”
Guzevich and the mariachi band are looking forward to their upcoming winter concert on Dec. 5 at the California Center for the Arts. Tickets for the event will become available soon.
