[mariachi music] I It's not my culture, so I don't know much about it, but I think that's what makes me love it even more.

It's my favorite part about band.

Everything, Quinciaras, birthdays parties, family get together is you always have mariachi music playing.

You want to enjoy some of our culture too, because it's fun.

We can enjoy it together and connect as people.

I tell people, band actors leave college with the holy trinity of band.

You've got a concert band, a marching band, a jazz band.

But there's more to music than that.

There's just all kinds of things we can get out there and do just your comfort level and go meet the students where they are.

Denison had a very strong band tradition, but I would get up in front of the concert band and at the time there's about 110 or so in the band, hundred and 20, and I'd look out at the concert band.

It did not look like the student population.

You can see the demographics in our elementary schools and you can see the trend that was happening.

And if we didn't do something, the band program wasn't going to be what it it had been.

So I immediately started looking, Well, how can we make sure we are meeting the Community West Music, which is a big music store out in eastern Iowa, was sponsoring a clinic, and the clinic was how to start a mariachi program.

And I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that.

And so I took took that as my sign went to the clinic, said, This is it.

We got to do this.

It was very doable.

This is our first program and it's right here in the state of Iowa.

So how great is that?

So thank you very much.

Here we are ten years later, ten, 11 years later.

But with the program, So today's our fundraiser.

It's what we do, the kind of prepare the whole year for.

It's our chance to showcase our mariachi groups, mostly for the community.

I like it, though, because at the same time it feels like everyone's family because we come to support.

Yeah, well, it feels really late in the audience.

It's great.

You look out in the audience and it is a slice of Denison.

It is everybody.

It's every walk of life.

It brings everybody together because in the end, everybody likes live music.

They like to come out and see it.

So it's it's been a cool thing to see in the community and it's a good You you have to put in that extra bit of effort to go out to people and show that I care about their culture and just like they probably care about mine.

yeah.

You know, you have to put in the effort to know what the song means so you can play it correctly and put in the effort, you know?

So you're fitting the style of each song.

If you told me and you're going to have a mariachi program and it's going to change the change the community, change the school, and for the positive, it's obviously way more than I could have dreamed.

I mean, this is the job I was hoping to have and then some But you have to accept everything you see in the world.

And my group, my top group people, the people I play with that I have practice with every Tuesday and seminar during school and outside of school is that everyone has different lives and you really don't know what's going on and how people take things and what they're going through.

So being a down to earth person is what I'll take away.

It sounds cheesy.

It's a classic or down to earth, but you don't know what other people go through or what other people's lives are like until you're put in their shoes.

And I was put in other people's shoes when I joined this program