Mariachi makes a match

MERCEDES — For Mark and Virginia Reney, love was a match made in mariachi.

He - a classic guitar player with rock ‘n’ roll dreams - met her in a music theory class at the University of Texas at Brownsville.

She - an aspiring violin teacher - introduced him to the music that would become their passion.

Now married and entering their 30s, the couple teaches Mercedes High School’s Mariachi Nuevo Sendero together and couldn’t imagine spending their lives any other way.

“We have our work here, and we take our work home,” Mark said. “A lot of people say you’re not supposed to do that, but it works for us and we love the music.”

Their relationship wasn’t always a given, though. When Virginia enrolled at UTB in 1998, she spoke little English.

The Valle Hermoso, Tamps., native has been playing mariachi music for most of her life. She became one of the founding members of Mariachi Escorpión, UTB’s award-winning group.

“Mariachi is a part of my culture,” she said. “It’s in my heart. I grew up with it. I understand it.”

Mark, on the other hand, grew up in Plano - a largely white-bread suburb north of Dallas - didn’t know Spanish and had only begun to take up classical music in college.

“I didn’t speak Spanish and she didn’t speak English,” he said. “But we both spoke music and we started from there.”

Despite some complications

“She had a big bodyguard of a boyfriend,” he said. “So she wasn’t available when we first met.”

Still, Mark persisted, and after a first date in Mexico - which he maintains she asked him on - they became a couple. It was only a matter of time before he got dragged into the mariachi group. They married and had a son - Danyel, now 4 - who they hope will share their passion for music.

“(Virginia) used to play violin to him when she was pregnant,” Mark said. “She had her mariachi dress altered so her stomach could fit into it.”

After graduating from UTB in 2004, Virginia landed the orchestra director’s position at Mercedes High School. Mark soon became a student teacher there.

In their teaching careers, however, it was Mark who led her to back to mariachi. Once he started working with the Nuevo Sendero group, she jumped at the chance to follow.

Together, they have transformed the band into a competitive high school ensemble that has performed with college-level groups and won numerous awards.

Life isn’t always trills and grace notes, however. Just like any other couple, they have their arguments - spats which can blow out of proportion because of their constant time together.

But they credit the heights the high school group has achieved with the fact that they live, breathe and work mariachi.

“Every time we go and play at parties, quinceañeras, funerals, the music moves people,” Mark said. “It brings something beautiful out of its listeners and out of us.”