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| Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Flores Mexicanas. |
February 2017
OK, the Mariachi Festival was technically in New Mexico, and not in El Paso, but only just.
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| Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Son de Mexico. |
The first and only mariachi festival I attended previously was the 2012 Mariachi Conference in Las Cruces:
- An introduction to mariachi and the conference here
- My first revelatory exposure to matachine dancers here (at the Mariachi Conference)
- The splendiferous Mariachi Mass here
The Mariachi Festival at Sunland Park occurred in February and it was my second visit to the Sunland Park Casino and Race Track.
Standing room only!
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| Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Mariachi Aguilas de Las Cruces. |
Terrific appreciation of the musicians by the audience, with glad calls for "Otra! Otra!" after most of the bands' last songs of their sets.
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| Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Flores Mexicanas. |
As with zydeco, cajun, and - I suppose - just about every musical genre - there is a repertoire of song standards in mariachi, which most life-long adherents know all the words to, and thus sing along. This conversation, this connection, between the musicians and audience members, creates that exhilarating oneness, that inter-connectivity, that sense of "us" and "we," that I so love.
I've posted quite a number of videos from the festival here (via a search on my youtube channel with the words mariachi and sunland).
The one below, by Son de Mexico, makes me smile hugely because of its gleeful, rascally showmanship:
In the video below, the all-woman mariachi band, Flores Mexicanas, even includes a harp!
In the video below, featuring Mariachi Aguilas de Las Cruces, you can get an idea of how many mariachi lovers were present:
"Otra, otra!"
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