The student ensemble Mariachi Los Broncos de Pomona will celebrate its first anniversary with a concert.
The event, billed as “Hace un Año (One Year Ago),” will be staged at the Music Recital Hall at 8 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 27.
Assistant Professor Jessie M. Vallejo, who is also a mariachi musician, leads the ensemble that consists of students from diverse backgrounds and majors such as music, business, engineering, kinesiology and psychology.
The ensemble has worked with world-class masters of mariachi, including Jesús Guzmán, the multiple Grammy-winning director of Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano. Mariachi Los Caballeros de Cal Poly Pomona, the university’s beginning mariachi ensemble, and Paulina Joana y El Premer Movimiento, a student norteño ensemble, also will perform.
College mariachi ensemble programs began in the 1960s when the Chicano civil rights movement and the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 prompted changes in diversity on campuses and encouraged students to take pride in their culture.
Southern California has served as a historically significant place for the cultivation of the Chicano movement and academic mariachi programs. Throughout the late 20th century, Cal Poly Pomona had a mariachi ensemble that was part of this legacy. However, the original mariachi ensemble on campus dissolved after the early 2000s.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the box office in Building 24, room 188 from noon to 1 p.m. on weekdays or online. Visitor parking is $7.