Maria Garcia still remembers the sound of her mother’s guitar in their Dallas living room, the way songs could pull an entire family into the same emotional space.
That’s where her life in music began, long before she stood in front of a room full of middle schoolers as director of orchestra and mariachi at W.E. Greiner Exploratory Arts Academy.
“My main instrument is the violin,” she said. “I play a little button accordion, and then I know a little bit about all the instruments just to be able to teach it.”
The violin, though, is home. She started on it as a child at Leila P. Cowart Elementary School after a short stint on trumpet. Her path solidified in middle school when she auditioned for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Young Strings program. Her world expanded when she was selected for Saturday lessons in a symphony player’s home, performances in the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center lobby, and even concerts at private homes.
“That’s what really kind of made the love of music a lot stronger for me,” Garcia said. “My private teacher was amazing. She told me, ‘You need to be a teacher. You’re very good at what you’re doing. You’re a good performer, but I can see you being a teacher. You’re good with people.’”
She laughs now when she mentions that, as a kid, she actually wanted to be a detective. Instead, she became something quieter but just as observant: a music educator who reads children through the way they hold a bow, the way they breathe before a phrase, and the way they walk onstage.
At Greiner, where she has taught for 18 years, Garcia leads both the Yellow Jacket Orchestra and Mariachi Los Únicos, a name chosen because it was once the district’s only middle school mariachi band.
“Our community is mostly Hispanic, and this is what they listen to at home, just like I did,” she said. “When they see that they’re part of that and they can make that music themselves, they fall in love with it.”
Students gravitate toward the mariachi music energy, lyrics, movement, and visual flair, she said.
Orchestra often has to fight for their attention. Garcia is honest about that tension without resenting it. She works around it instead, pushing to bring pop pieces into orchestra concerts and giving students chances to sing with the ensemble.
“It’s just harder to get the same energy from them in the orchestra than it is for mariachi,” she said. “But they understand that orchestra is important because that’s where they get the foundation, how to note read, how to build their finger flexibility.”
She doesn’t lead either group alone. Her co-director, Felipe Diaz, joined her a decade ago, bringing high school-level experience and a deep mariachi background.
Together, they built programs that are noticed beyond the district.
For orchestra, both varsity and junior varsity recently earned sweepstakes at UIL Concert and Sight-Reading contests. On the mariachi side, Mariachi los Únicos was named North Regional Middle School Champions through the Texas Association of Mariachi Educators and invited to Juan Seguin High School in Arlington to showcase between top high school ensembles.
They have also traveled to Albuquerque, N.M., where they placed first place at the annual Mariachi Spectacular de Albuquerque.
Those results have opened doors. When Greiner was selected as a Grammy-recognized school, the program received a donation of instruments and a visit from regional Mexican star, Cristian Nodal.
Mariachi los Únicos also performed for Hillary Rodham Clinton on the campaign trail, at the State Fair of Texas, and at community events across the city.
This academic year is already keeping them busy. In December, both the orchestra and mariachi will perform at Dallas Zoo Lights. During spring break, they plan to travel to Orlando, Fla., for the Disney Performing Arts Music Festival, where the orchestra will perform and mariachi students will work with a member of Mariachi Cobre at EPCOT.
In the classroom, the payoff of the lessons are visibly steady — a shy sixth grader who can barely look up at the music stand in September, standing onstage by winter and owning a solo.
“I love to see when they come to us and they know nothing, and then by the end of three months they’re already on stage performing on their own,” Garcia said. “We’re not just trying to set up musicians. We’re trying to set up a productive citizen for our neighborhood, for our country.”
Garcia is also continuing her legacy at Dallas ISD. Her son, a violinist in eighth grade at Greiner, came through her program and quickly rose to the top group.
When Garcia thinks about what makes her proudest, she doesn’t think about trophies or titles; she thinks about faces instead.
“I think to me it’s leaving a mark on all the students’ lives,” she said. “That they remember us, and that they know they’re always welcome back. We’re always beaming with happiness and pride when we see them succeed.”