Spirited sounds

On a late August day in 2024, Ashley de la Rosa sat in the center of a classroom in NMSU’s Music Building, surrounded by 10 or so fellow musicians holding various stringed instruments and horns. As the group quieted, de la Rosa raised her voice and started counting down. When she reached the final number, she began playing her five-string vihuela and led the ensemble in a mariachi rendition of “Tequila.”

The performance kicked off an afternoon of practice for the newest addition to NMSU’s Pride of New Mexico Marching Band, Mariachi Orgullo.

“As a group, we sound much better,” says de la Rosa, an undergraduate student majoring in biology and microbiology who joined the group in spring 2022 and currently serves as its captain. “It’s been a journey for us to get where we are today.”

Before Mariachi Orgullo, NMSU lacked a dedicated mariachi program, an oversight Steven Smyth, NMSU’s associate director of bands, sought to remedy in 2021 with help from a student who had an extensive background in mariachi.

That student, Kenneth Tanuz ’22, was instrumental in forming the group and shaping its identity as part of the greater marching band. Even as a music education student, Tanuz knew a mariachi program would appeal to many of his peers. 

“After all, it’s a style of music that has become so ingrained in our region’s culture,” Tanuz says.

Fittingly named Mariachi Orgullo, which translates into pride, the group started with four members, with Tanuz directing. Now tripled in size, the group has quickly made a name for itself and performed at 40 events in 2023 across NMSU. 

Mariachi Orgullo often accompanies NMSU’s Ballet Folklórico group, another relatively new component of the marching band. That was the case during the midweek rehearsal in August, a few days before the 2024 football season opener at Aggie Memorial Stadium, where the two groups joined the band for a halftime routine.

Both groups have enriched the overall marching band program, Smyth says.

“Mariachi Orgullo is a very important part of the Pride of New Mexico Marching Band family,” he says. “Along with our Ballet Folklórico, it helps bridge musical cultures and brings a unique aspect to our band that no other college marching band in the country uses. It also broadens opportunities so that more musicians in the Borderland can have a great college musical experience.”

Tanuz, who also works as a teacher in Las Cruces, agrees. 

“Many of the students in folklórico and mariachi are students who are not always inclined to do band, choir or orchestra because that’s not their cultural background,” Tanuz says. “So, providing folklórico and mariachi here at New Mexico State has opened a new opportunity for students who want to identify with something, but they still want to feel close to their culture.”

For de la Rosa, singing and playing the vihuela transport her back to her Mexican roots. She grew up in a family of Norteño musicians and inherited a passion for making music. She joined her first mariachi group as a high schooler in El Paso. After arriving at NMSU, she was thrilled at the prospect of getting to play the music of her heritage as a member of the university’s award-winning marching band.

“We’re friends, we’re family,” de la Rosa says of Mariachi Orgullo. “We’re trying to be our best every day, and we want to bring mariachi and its Mexican roots to the Aggie community.”