On March 1, 2023, Palatine High School’s mariachi and orchestra will be collaborating together. This event will take place in the auditorium at 7:30pm.

Palatine’s mariachi will be playing after the orchestra. The songs the mariachi will play will be Los Laureles, De Colores, El Rey, and Árboles De La Barranca. The concert will finish with the orchestra and mariachi playing El Cóndor Pasa.

“[People] should come to this concert because mariachi is kind of new in this school,” freshmen guitarist Paloma Castaneda said. “[The music] really shows more about our culture and what we stand for and what we believe are their traditions.”

El Cóndor Pasa is a song with a history to it, originating from Peru and first written by Daniel Alomía Robles. The song’s name translates to “The Condor Passes” and is a sorrow-laced song describing the limitations on freedom, oppression, power, and despair. The musical piece is meant to represent how Andean miners want to break free from exploitation. They strive for freedom, with a passing flying condor becoming the symbol of freedom to the miners.

The students involved with mariachi have worked on perfecting the song El Cóndor Pasa for numerous hours for almost all of February. Attending the concert will show appreciation for the students’ hard work.

“From the beginning of the year, it was hard to even do chord changes,” Castaneda said. “Even though we sometimes mess up, it’s a lot easier to get those chords and rhythms that seemed almost impossible before.”

The concert will show more skilled melodies and demonstrate the mariachi students talent. 

“You never know what you might like,” sophomore guitarist Abril Lara said. “You can see them [perform] and then you might like [it]… and I think it’s really important to change your perspective.”