UTSA Launches Inaugural Mariachi Summer Camp

(Photo courtesy of UTSA School of Music)

More than 20 high school students will sharpen their vocal and instrument skills this week at UTSA’s inaugural Mariachi All-State Summer Clinic. Presented by UTSA Arts and the UTSA School of Music, this new summer camp is the next step in UTSA’s commitment to serve as an education, research and training hub for contemporary musicians.

The four-day camp is scheduled today through Thursday, July 18, in the Arts Building on the UTSA Main Campus.

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“As San Antonio’s largest public university, UTSA is committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians,” said Tracy Cowden, director of the School of Music. “We are proud to bring this first UTSA Mariachi Camp to fruition, building on a tremendous period of artistic accomplishment and growth in our mariachi program.”

The daily camp lineup will include a mix of instrument-specific instruction sessions for musicians in trumpet, violin, guitar, vihuela, guitarrón and voice. The vihuela is a smaller guitar with a higher, crispier sound, while the guitarrón is a large bass guitar. The camp will also bring together musicians for group practice sessions, enabling students to practice their skills and play songs together.

The camp will conclude with a final concert at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 18, in the UTSA Arts Building Recital Hall (ART 2.03.02B), where students will perform the three songs they learned during the week.

Michael Acevedo, director of Mariachi Los Paisanos, will teach trumpet at the camp. Other camp instructors include multi-instrumentalist William Galvez, who will assist with guitar, vihuela and voice, Eric Garcia, M.M. ’24, a mariachi teacher at John Jay High School, and UTSA senior Joaquin Robles, who will teach the guitarrón.

“Over the last several months, this new mariachi camp has attracted a lot of attention from students and families across the region,” said Acevedo, who hopes to grow the camp over the next several years. “We’re excited to offer this unique opportunity for campers to learn from the region’s top musicians. At the same time, this camp will give high school students a chance to experience life and classes on a college campus so they can become comfortable with educational opportunities beyond high school and have fun learning.”

Since UTSA announced the camp, Acevedo has received strong interest from the parents of middle school students who are interested in participating. He sees that as a sign of future growth for mariachi programs in San Antonio – growth that would also help create a need for more mariachi teachers in the region.

Meanwhile, UTSA is also growing its college-level mariachi offerings. To meet the growing student interest and demand for mariachi music, the UTSA School of Music will add a new degree to its lineup starting in Fall 2024: the Bachelor of Arts in Commercial and Digital Music. In the new program, students will select courses from four focus areas: technology, composition, history/culture, and performance. Mariachi ensemble will be a primary option in the performance focus area.

The new bachelor’s degree will be tailored to students whose musical interests, experience and career goals are centered around genres of music and aspects of the music industry that lie outside both the classical tradition and the more traditional pathways of musical training.

In Fall 2023, award-winning singer-songwriter Shelly Lares joined the UTSA School of Music as its artist-in-residence. With a career spanning more than four decades, Lares is internationally recognized for her resonant voice and charismatic stage presence. As artist-in-residence, she lectured in music technology classes to help students master innovative recording and editing techniques. She also coached UTSA’s vocal students, including Mariachi Los Paisanos, to enhance their Tejano-style abilities. Lares will return to the UTSA faculty in Fall 2024.

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