As the twang of American guitars and the familiar lyrics of country songs played over loudspeakers across Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo grounds, the first notes of a vihuela — similar to a guitarrón but smaller and tuned to a higher octave — filled the air inside Will Rogers Auditorium.
With that sound, the unmistakable energy of mariachi helped kick off the 2025 stock show season in Fort Worth.
At the Texas Invitational Mariachi Competition Jan. 18, high school mariachi ensembles — dressed in dazzling trajes de charro — poured passion and pride into every note. The competition spotlights the skill and dedication of these young musicians, but it also serves as a testament to the enduring power of music to connect and inspire, directors said.
“Mariachi kept me in school,” Castleberry ISD mariachi director Jairo Salazar said. “You teach the kids cultures and traditions. I’m Mexican-American and I feel like I learned a lot of this stuff while I was in the mariachi.”
The Texas Invitational Mariachi Competition annually brings some of the best high school mariachi ensembles from across the metroplex to the rodeo. Fort Worth ISD’s North Side High School, which won nationals in 2017, was one of seven invitees.
2025 Texas Invitational Mariachi Competition participants and results:
- Sol Azteca – Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy
- Espuelas de Plata – North Side High School
- Mariachi Azul – Grand Prairie High School
- Los Leones – Castleberry High School
- Los Guerreros – South Grand Prairie High School
- Mariachi Pegaso – Booker T. Washington High School
- Mariachi Tejano – Sam Houston High School
Also among the participants was Castleberry ISD’s Castleberry High School, home to one of North Texas’ largest — but lesser known — mariachi programs, Salazar said.
With over 120 high school students and nearly 300 middle school students involved, the program has grown exponentially since its inception in 2017.
“It’s a safe space,” Salazar told the Report. “We don’t recruit, kids come to us. This is their program, this isn’t ours.”
Salazar and his fellow director, Juan Sigala, bring a wealth of experience and passion to the program. Sigala, a third-generation mariachi, said classical training helped shape his teaching.
“I was in orchestra for the longest time,” Sigala said. “So when I had the opportunity to play mariachi, I jumped at it. That’s such a rare thing, to be able to share music from my hometown that was passed down to me from generation after generation.”
For students like senior Amado Sanchez Hernandez and junior Maday Vazquez, joining the mariachi program has been transformative.
“I didn’t get the appeal. When I was younger I hated mariachi — I really did. My dad would play it on the radio and I wanted nothing to do with it. I didn’t want to hear it,” Vazquez said. “It wasn’t until freshman year when I saw (varsity perform), and I was in the front row, and their performance gave me chills.”
A switch inside her flipped, she said.
“I want to be there. I want to perform. I want to show my culture,” Vazquez said.
And Sanchez Hernandez, who was a band kid and initially didn’t plan on pursuing mariachi, found a home in the program.
“I decided to give mariachi a try,” Sanchez Hernandez said. “As a freshman, watching the varsity perform … that power that it gives you … it’s something unexplainable. That started a fire within me.”
That year, he started learning how to play the trumpet and the harp. The harp was much harder to learn, he said, but he now has a “pretty decent” grasp of the instrument.
Both students emphasized the unifying power of mariachi.
“The thing about the Mexican community in particular, we’re all family,” Vazquez said. “And mariachi is music that unites us all, it’s music that we all play. We’ve all shared this part of our lives and the fact that we perform it and share it with other people, it’s very uniting. That’s what music is.”
Preparing for a competition of this caliber is no small feat, both directors said. Every year, they raise the rigor, raise the expectations and continue to challenge their students to improve on the year before.
Still, success starts not with awards and trophies, but with the fostering of a positive environment, Sigala said.
“Pasión, entrega y corazón,” Sigala said, using a phrase that translates as passion, commitment and heart. “Let’s build the culture. … I think these kids are so invested in spreading their culture, sharing their music.”
Trophies come secondary to that mission, he said, but the team is starting to rack up the awards. Castleberry earned second place in the UIL State Mariachi Festival last year.
They’re looking for more in 2025. The program at Castleberry will continue to grow, the directors said. Both have high hopes.
“Hopefully we get more support. More directors,” Salazar said. “We’re a small little district inside of Fort Worth … our goal isn’t to make professionals, it’s to make decent human beings.”
And for students like Sanchez Hernandez, the lessons learned extend beyond music.
“Being around the team just makes me happy, you know? There’s no other family I have in the world that makes me feel connected like this,” he said.
He’ll sure miss it, he told the Report.
“I’m graduating this year, and I’ll go off to go do greater things in the world, but this will always be a part of me for the rest of my life, for sure,” he said.
A senior, Sanchez Hernandez will attend Texas State University in the fall.
His goal? To become a music educator.
Hopefully, he said, he can inspire the next generation of mariachis to harness that “unexplainable power” that comes with performing the sounds of his culture.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1.
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