Gabe Kasek strums some chords while waiting for rehearsal to being for Austin High School's mariachi band Tuesday night.

Horns, violins, trumpets and guitars filled the air inside one of Austin High School’s orchestra rooms Tuesday night. AHS students were playing classics, but no classical compositions echoed forth. Instead, they played, sizzled and blared forth Latin standards.

The AHS mariachi band isn’t like other music extracurriculars. The practices are loose, the music is bombastic and the group is still coming together. As ninth-grader Rosa Palma told the group, “We’re finally getting a sixth-sense about this.”

The Austin High School mariachi band, under the direction of adviser Tim Davis, rehearses Tuesday in the high school annex.

That’s music to band teacher Tim Davis’s ears.

“We’ve got the momentum going,” Davis said. “Now the music is gelling together.”

It’s been a long time coming for Davis and some of the mariachi band members. The band came together in January of 2010 at Ellis Middle School, after Davis and other teachers saw an increasing population of Hispanic students in school. Problem was, there weren’t as many students of color in music classes.

“Our school population was becoming more diverse, but we were noticing the bands and orchestras were not reflecting that,” Davis said.

The band’s first year consisted of 12 middle school students learning two songs to play at the Ellis Expo. The band expanded its performances to include Austin’s Taste of Nations event last year. Now that most members have moved to the high school, Davis and the band focused on recruiting high school students to play, though Davis hopes to start up a middle school program.

Band membership has fluctuated over the years, but there’s still a core group of students including sophomore Deyvid Lopez and ninth-graders Veronica Bravo, Yesenia Ortiz and Palma.

“We were excited to do something new, because we didn’t have anything to do after school,” Palma said. Bravo, Ortiz, Palma and Lopez all started during that first year and are still with the group, though Lopez couldn’t participate last year since he was in high school and the group was considered a middle school activity.

The band plays Latin standards and mariachi masterpieces like “Cielito Lindo” and “Cerca Del Mar,” both enormously popular pieces. “Cielito” is a Mexican love song written in 1882 that has come to be known as a Mexican theme of sorts.

Residents young and old can recognize other hits the band plays, like “El Gatito” and “De Colores,”

“While you’re listening, you probably realize, ‘Hey, I’ve heard these before,’” said junior Gabe Kasak. Kasak came into the band in December, since the group was looking for a guitar player. He enjoys learning about a new style of music different from what he’s used to and he likes the musical variety mariachi brings.

“These are the ones that get stuck in your head and now that you know them it’s really interesting,” he said.

The band showed what they were made of Friday at the Minnesota Music Educators Association Midwinter Conference, a three-day gathering of music professionals from across Minnesota. Davis decided to apply for a lecture opportunity since Austin’s mariachi band is, to his knowledge, the only school-based mariachi band in the state.

“I was willling to share what I’ve learned and what we were doing here,” Davis said. “Maybe another city or school district that was thinking about wanting to do this but didn’t know how to start, maybe this would help them get a start.”

Band members hope for more opportunities to play after their performance at the State Music Conference. With a dedicated group of core individuals, Davis wants the students will approach business and organizations to set up their own gigs as part of the learning process. Davis is proud of the group and what they’ve accomplished. He soon expects he’ll no longer have to fill in during performances, since everyone is getting so polished.

“It is good to be running the music and not worrying about it falling apart because it’s so new for everybody,” Davis said. “Everybody’s getting a sense of where there part fits in, which is exactly what you want to have with an ensemble.”

Palma, Ortiz and Bravo say they’re interested in playing the Mower County and Freeborn County Fairs this summer and hope to make that happen. They are proud to show part of their culture and background to residents in Austin and across the state.

“(It’s) to let them know our roots and where we come from,” Ortiz said. “It’s very important to us.”