Axel Rodríguez Olivas, who played saxophone in middle school band, chose to try a new instrument after seeing mariachi offered at his high school. The 20-year-old is set to become the first student to graduate with a mariachi minor from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a credential that barely existed anywhere outside of Texas before UNLV created it.
From a Mislabeled Class to Student Director
Rodríguez Olivas had already played saxophone in middle school band before choosing mariachi at his high school to learn a new instrument, according to KXAN Austin. He went on to become student director of Mariachi Joya, Las Vegas High School's top ensemble, which the outlet reports has grown to about 350 students and performed at Joe Biden's 2021 presidential inauguration. The group also took first place at the 2026 Mariachi Extravaganza Las Vegas, per the same report.
The man who shaped that path is Stephen Blanco, who founded Mariachi Joya in 2018 with just 50 students before it expanded into the hundreds-strong program it is today, according to UNLV News Center. Blanco now directs UNLV's mariachi minor and was named a national finalist for the 2025 Grammy Music Educator Award, according to W Magazine, which also notes he previously won the 2022 Nevada Heart of Education Award. Blanco has said mariachi is present somewhere on the Las Vegas Strip every single day, KXAN reports.
A Teacher Shortage Driving a New Degree
UNLV built its 22-credit mariachi minor to address a real gap: Las Vegas has a shortage of mariachi teachers, even as Latinos make up more than a third of the city's population, according to KXAN's reporting. The minor trains students to teach the instrument formally, and UNLV students in the program study more than 70 mariachi songs over a single semester, the outlet notes. Rodríguez Olivas plans to put that training to use teaching mariachi in the Clark County School District after he graduates in three years.
“I want to kind of give back to future generations and give them the same opportunities that I had, and make it as fun as it was for me,” Rodríguez Olivas told KXAN. He has said joy is what he ultimately feels when performing mariachi, a sentiment that echoes the genre's roots — mariachi is a form of Mexican folk music born out of joy and pride in Mexico, per the outlet.
The District Behind the Demand
The scale of that demand traces back to 2002, when the Clark County School District's mariachi program began with 250 students across four schools, according to The Nevada Independent. KXAN puts current student participation at about 6,000. That growth has made it the largest public school mariachi program in the nation, the Nevada Independent reports.
The district those programs serve is enormous, with a large Latino student population. Clark County is the fifth-largest school district in the United States. A 2012 report put enrollment at 311,380, with Hispanic students making up 44% that year; Hispanic students had surpassed white students as the district's largest group in 2006, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Performing Beyond the Classroom
Rodríguez Olivas's musical life extends well past campus. He performs with Mariachi Paloma Azteca alongside Blanco, a group that plays birthday parties, weddings and funerals, and that recently opened its performance at a Las Vegas concert with “El Jalisciense,” a song celebrating the Mexican state of Jalisco made famous by Vicente Fernández, according to KXAN's reporting.
UNLV's minor is a rare offering outside of Texas, where mariachi education degree tracks have historically been concentrated, including Texas State University's mariachi minor, an 18-semester-credit option for students pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree with a Music Studies major. UNESCO inscribed mariachi music on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in November 2011, recognizing the tradition's strings, trumpets and vocal arrangements as central to Mexican cultural identity, according to UNESCO. For a city where, as Rodríguez Olivas's own path shows, a mistaken violin assignment can turn into a teaching career, that global recognition underscores just how much weight Las Vegas schools are placing on preserving the tradition for the next generation.
