PM Music Center at 4411 Fox Valley Center Drive in Aurora has opened a new in-store showroom dedicated to mariachi music.
Called Mariachi Mercado, the showroom is designed to serve as a hub for Chicago area mariachi musicians,
educators and enthusiasts, store officials said, and offers a selection of instruments, accessories and repair services tailored to the needs of mariachi performers.
The store near Fox Valley Mall held a grand opening for the new mariachi showroom recently which included a performance by the group Mariachi Flor de Primavera.
Samuel Villegas, 21, of Chicago, said he has been playing mariachi music since he was 12 years old and performed with Mariachi Flor de Primavera at the event.
“Having this outreach is a great step to integrate more Mexican culture and mariachi into the general music audience,” he said of the new showroom. “This is a huge step. More students can get their strings and instruments more accessibly.”
Antonette Kanae, brand and graphic design manager for PM Music, said the new showroom “represents more of an outreach to our local community that focuses on mariachi.”
“We’re just trying to make a connection. Aurora has a very large Mexican population, and for the past two years we’ve been doing more partnerships with the schools we work with and helping them develop their mariachi programs,” Kanae said. “Among the ways we’ve done that, there have been sponsorships and we have donated instruments and we donate repairs as we have an indoor repair shop, one of the few in the Chicago area.”
The store itself has been around since 1982, Kanae said, noting that the decision to open the mariachi showroom now was based on a yearly music conference the store owners attend.
“It’s a very big music conference where a lot of retailers, musicians and music educators go out and connect and learn about all the happenings for all the music programs in stores and schools,” she said. “One of the big features in recent years was this big part with mariachi music and owners felt very inspired by that and wanted to do this. We can bring this sort of community in our town where there is a large Hispanic population.”
Lewis Shender said he and another partner purchased the business in 2022.
“Once I got here and started getting familiar with the business I wanted to do more with mariachi,” Shender said. “A few years ago, I was at the IMEC – the Illinois Music Education Conference – which is held every year in Peoria. They had a performance of kids learning mariachi from the Joliet area. I saw it. I was so moved. A lot of these parents are immigrants and don’t speak English well and they feel marginalized. Their kids are super-Americanized and there is this barrier. The mariachi seemed to just bring everything together. It’s the cultural pride. I decided we need to do that.”
Shender said he hopes the store will be a magnet for those interested in mariachi music.
“A huge percentage of our business comes from schools, so we just want to be recognized as the mariachi musical provider in the Chicago area,” he said. “We also have a relatively small retail shop where we want the local people to come in when they need to learn mariachi or buy instruments or whatever they need.”
Harley Figueroa, director of scholastic programs at PM Music Center, said the outreach program is needed “as the mariachi programs are really exploding in the state of Illinois.”
“What was very small when I started working here 14 years ago, now with the big Latino communities, they are embracing this type of music,” he said. “It’s similar to country. It’s very folkloric, it tells a story, and a lot of (school) programs already have an orchestra. This is simple but beautiful music.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
