Mariachi festival brings a vibrant Utah music scene to downtown Salt Lake City

A joyous symphony of mariachi music filled the lobby of Salt Lake City’s Eccles Theater Friday night, as part of what was billed as Utah’s first-ever mariachi festival.

Though the songs were in Spanish, the leader of the band Mariachi Guzman told the audience, “music is a universal language, so we hope you can enjoy.”

Mariachi Guzman was one of four Utah mariachi groups to perform Friday — each with their own style. The others were Mariachi Sol deJalisco, Mariachi Fuego and Trio Los Charros.

Classical guitarist Sergio Fuentes Oseguera opened the show, playing traditional Mexican classics, like the folk song “La Llorona.”

Wearing white trajes de charros — traditional suits worn in Mexican culture, often by mariachi group members — Mariachi Guzman played a set that ended with a song that was a fusion of mariachi and country music. Mariachi Sol deJalisco, dressed in dark blue trajes de charros, played a set that was slower and more melodic.

People in the audience of between 150 and 200 — many sitting in chairs on the ground floor, others looking down from the lobby’s staircases and balconies — sang along to the songs. Some danced, and everyone clapped. The crowd was big enough that some people sat outside on the sidewalk in front of Eccles in outdoor chairs they brought with them.

Eduardo Baca, the consul general of Mexico in Salt Lake City, said when he first arrived in Utah, “I knew that there would be at least one mariachi group because that happens almost everywhere, where there’s a big Mexican or Mexican-origin community.”

However, Baca said he was “happily surprised” to see how big the mariachi scene was in Utah. (There are even kids mariachi programs around the state, like the one at Esparanza Elementary in West Valley City.)

“I guess that is a testament to the fact that mariachi music has become so so popular, not only to Mexicans, but to Americans, and to many people who have gotten to know the genre,” Baca said.

Last year, Baca said, the consulate co-hosted a mariachi music contest to showcase the different groups’ talents. Following last year’s success, he said, the sponsors — the consulate, The Blocks and Salt Lake County Arts & Culture (which operates the Eccles) — wanted to take more of a festival approach.

Baca, who has also served in South America and the Caribbean, said he’s long since noticed that mariachi music is celebrated in a lot of places. “In some places in South America, it’s part of their family celebrations. Mariachi music has become well-known and well-regarded. A lot of people love mariachi around the world.”

When it comes to popularity here in the United States, Baca said it can be attributed in part to “being kept alive [by] communities abroad.”

Baca said, “when you’re abroad, there is always a nostalgia for home, and that’s part of it.” He also pointed out that mariachi was recognized by UNESCO in 2011 for its “intangible cultural patrimony.”

At the Eccles on Friday, cheers and gritos — an emotional, often joyous yell that has cultural and political roots in Mexican culture — echoed off the marble floors of Eccles as much as the performers’ music and vocals did.

The genre’s popularity, Baca said, comes from the very nature of what mariachi music is.

“Mariachi music is a very happy, celebratory music. People always enjoy that, especially in celebrations and holidays [which] have become more and more popular in the U.S.,” Baca said, “The public in general [in Utah] is very appreciative of the arts and different art expressions.”

For Mexicans, Baca said, mariachi music has always been a cornerstone of their cultural celebrations.

“Mariachi music is something that so many kids, now grown-ups, have listened to — on old Mexican movies, TV shows, state or local fairs, for birthdays,” Baca said. “[In] my childhood, if you were able to afford it, to get somebody to just play a couple of songs for a birthday was very typical.”

Baca added, “[for] a lot of Mexican people, [mariachi] evokes part of their growing up, of their childhood — listening to it, or listening to the records with their parents or their grandparents.”

That feeling of celebration was evident on the faces of Friday’s crowd, as they sang along, swayed and shared excited looks with one another, echoing the joy the mariachi artists created.