The sounds of weeping violins, rhythmic guitars and vihuela, the low thump of the guitarrón, rich trumpets, the angelic strings of a harp and powerful, yet soulful vocal harmonies echoed off the walls of McAllen High School, reverberating through every crevice of the sparsely occupied school Tuesday afternoon.
The sound grew louder and stronger, emanating through the open door of the school’s auditorium where Mariachi Oro rehearsed. Despite the generally relaxed atmosphere, the award winning group operated like a finely tuned machine — each section coming together like parts of a luxury vehicle and taking the listener away to Veracruz.
It is easy to see, or rather hear, why an ensemble of talented young musicians would be ranked not only among the best in the state of Texas, but the number one high school mariachi group in division 5-A.
“This particular (competition) is the one that declares the state champion,” Head Director Alex Treviño said. “It’s sort of like the UIL marching contest that declares a state champion for marching. This is the equivalent, which is the TAME (Texas Association of Mariachi Educators) state finals that declares a state champion in each division.”
Mariachi Oro won its seventh state title in nine years Friday at the 2022 TAME Mariachi State Finals in San Antonio — eight years if you exclude the 2021 season considering that the state competition was canceled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s unfortunate because we’ve had a solid group of kids over the last few years,” Treviño said.
The group was forced to rebuild their program after losing students to graduation. Mariachi Oro started the 2021-22 school year looking to fill 12 of the 18 spots, a task that involved moving students from one instrument to another, or teaching a student a completely new instrument.
“It’s been a tough year. It’s been a rough time just trying to get them up and going again,” Treviño said. “It’s basically ground zero — bringing them up little by little with fundamentals and day by day drills and rituals, scales and positioning and all that stuff. We were just trying to get all these kids to a good and respectable level.
“It was a long tough road, but over the last few weeks we started seeing some big strides from the group,” he continued. “We thought we might have a chance of doing well, maybe placing top five or top three maybe. But these kids were phenomenal. They went out there and put out a spectacular performance. They just poured their hearts out.”
Their hard work was evident in the sheer charisma and showmanship displayed during their award-winning performance last week. Each instrument was finely tuned, and each member delivered passionate and enthusiastic performances of “Bonito Mi Nochistlán,” a son jalisciense, “Me Borrarás,” a rearranged Peruvian waltz, and “La Vieja,” a son jarocho.
When it came time for the division 5-A state champion to be announced, the students could be seen jumping to their feet at the realization that their hard work had earned their program yet another state title.
Among those sharing in the glory of yet another historic run for the prestigious program was 17-year-old Lucero Mendez, a senior violinist and vocalist.
“Just knowing that I was part of making history with this group just makes me feel really joyful,” Mendez said. “We’d lost a lot of faces, so most of our group was new. We were starting from scratch, basically. It felt great knowing that the hard work we put into this group paid off.”
Their hard work certainly paid off considering the stiff competition in the 5-A division, described by Treviño as the toughest. The top four ranked groups in the 5-A division were all from the Rio Grande Valley, with Edcouch Elsa High School coming in second place, Sharyland High School coming in third, and Rio Grande City High School coming in fourth.
“It was very joyful just being up there performing in front of all those people,” 14-year-old Jeykob Lopez, a freshman guitarist, said. “It could have been any one of us that won the state championship, but we won. It was just really joyful. The group that I’m with — I love them very much.”
Aside from the program’s knack for cultivating talent, the most common denominator has been Treviño — a product of McHi’s mariachi program and the director for 14 years. He has led his group to seven state championships and four State UIL Outstanding Performer awards during his tenure.
He credited his assistant directors, Bernardo Aldava and Neri Fuentes, with his group’s continued success.
As Mariachi Oro continued polishing up their performances ahead of the UIL competition, Treviño stood atop the control box of the auditorium — observing his group for any signs of improvement while also thinking about the future.
“We’re just cleaning up because they did so well — they performed really well, really solid, but we can do so much better,” Treviño said. “We tell the kids, ‘You all are state champions, and that’s great. Nobody can take that away from you, but let’s still see what you can improve on.’ There’s a lot of details vocally that we can get better on. There’s a lot of details within the violin section, within the trumpet section, within the rhythm section — just little details over all.
“We just keep striving for perfection, keep polishing those diamonds, and hopefully we’ll end up with something incredible,” he continued. “I know we will.”
