David Castro, longtime music teacher in Gadsden, retires
SAN LUIS, Ariz. – David Castro, the founder of the mariachi music program that introduced elementary school students here to their cultural roots, has retired as an educator
Friday was the last day for Castro, a teacher for 25 years in the Gadsden Elementary School District that serves students in San Luis and neighboring Gadsden.
“I arrived in the school district in 1997 as a teacher at Rio Colorado School, where there was a bilingual (education) program,” said Castro, who previously
was an elementary school teacher in San Luis Rio Colorado, Son.
“Since they knew I played various instruments, when the program ended, they offered me a job teaching music classes, and I dedicated myself to that for the past 22 years.”
Before making education his career, Castro had dreams of becoming a professional musician dating back to his youth in San Luis Rio Colorado, where he first practiced playing instruments under the tutelage of his older siblings, then learned music theory and learned to read music in secondary school.
“From chilhood I had the illusion of playing many different instruments. I became a teacher to support a (music) career,” Castro said.
Ultimately education became his career. He started out teaching all subjects in San Luis Rio Colorado and then in San Luis, Ariz., but it was in the Gadsden district that he attained his goal of becoming a full-time music teacher.
Around 2005, then-Superintendent Raymond Aguilero urged him and teacher Luis Villegas to start a program in the schools dedicated to mariachi music, a genre that evolved in rural western Mexico over time.
“He told us, “I want you to form a mariachi (program), and that challenge served us very well. “The (district) administration continues supporting it. It has brought about a musical culture that didn’t exist previously in the district. When we started, there already was a band program but it was limited.”
Today the district has several mariachi groups, made up of students in the fourth and fifth grades who don traditional mariachi clothes and carry their instruments to performances at schools and in the community.
Nearly five years ago, the district’s music program branched out to include norteño music, a genre that originated in northern Mexico, blending Mexican and European styles. Castro recruited students at Arizona Desert Elementary School in San Luis to form the district’s first norteño group. Cascabel Norteño. Recently a second group was formed, Estrella Norteño.
Castro says the mariachi and norteno bands have served to bring the district’s students closer to their roots and introduced them to the music of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
“The (traditional) language is lost to them by the second or third generation, but if the music is preserved, that’s a tremendous step forward,” he said. “Music helps in the preservation of the culture.”
But learning music also helps students in their other studies, he added.
“The music program has grown a lot and we have always had the conviction that it has many benefits, not only artistically and culturally, but in academics,” Castro said. “Scientific studies have shown that students who play instruments better develop their intellectual abilities than those who don’t.”
Pastor is finishing his career in the district at Ed Pastor Elementary School, where he founded the Flor del Desierto student mariachi group. But his influence extends to the districtwide mariachi band, as well as to the band Centzontle, a professional band made up of former district students once taught by Castro.
Among other alumni who studied under Castro are Aglae Mendez, now part of the mariachi group at Arizona State University, where she is studying music, and Coral Alonso, a professional mariachi singer.
Now reitred, Castro wants to continue his studies of mariachi music in a program in Calfornia, teaching private music classes and taking part in performances with Yuma Civic Orchestra. But he does not rule out helping in the continued development of the Gadsden mariachi program as a volunteer.