Lifting up his instrument, Clark begins fingering its strings, and the seven-member band of instructors follows. Warm, fluid music pours into the auditorium, bouncing across the acoustical boundaries of the building. Unforced smiles creep across faces, and bodies sigh with delight. Crimson patterns break across the cheeks of many in the audience. Now he wants to put what he's learned on paper, to be disseminated to more than just SJSU students.
Every sentence is spoken first in Spanish, then in English.
What is not spoken, however, is that Clark is searching earnestly for someone to take his place so he can leave the workshop and pursue other projects. Whether the SJSU music department can find someone to fill Clark's decorative charro boots could determine the fate of the mariachi workshop. If I were to just close it down, it would disappoint a lot of people. But I don't know if there's anyone out there who would want to do it. Now his mission is to gather a history of the music, so that it is available to an even larger group.