Musician brings percussion, discussion about how to play marimba

YAKIMA, Wash. -- The shoemaker's son has come a long way from banging on buckets in his hometown of León, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

So long, in fact, he's in the Yakima Valley this week performing intense percussion pieces that earn standing ovations and teaching children from Grandview to Thorp how to play the marimba.

Oscar Samuel Esqueda Velázquez, a slim 22-year-old with a gentle smile, is wrapping up a two-week visit here thanks to Yakima's connection with its sister city of Morelia, Michoacán.

It's his first time outside Mexico and required his first airplane flight.

"I was so excited to sit on the airplane. I watched out the window the whole time," said Esqueda, who says he's struck by the colors of the leaves in Yakima and views of a snow-capped Mount Adams. "I have had many new experiences here in Yakima. I'll be taking so much (back with me)."

******

He is leaving much behind, too. Esqueda has given performances and technical pointers to hundreds of students learning to play the marimba at nearly a dozen mostly elementary schools in the Yakima Valley. All of those schools have marimba programs.

"I like working with children, teaching them what I know," said Esqueda, who does not speak English.

He was surprised to learn how many of the young students here speak Spanish. They don't need his interpreter to ask questions.

"They had told me before I came that there were a lot of Mexicans here. But the truth is I didn't expect so many," Esqueda said. "It's really neat."

Noël Moxley, executive director of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, said Esqueda's marimba playing has been a hit with the students.

"What fifth-grader doesn't like beating things?" she asked, laughing.

******

Moxley met Esqueda about two years ago in Morelia, where he receives professional training at a private music conservatory called Las Rosas, or The Roses. She was in Morelia -- the capital of the Mexican state of Michoacán -- with a group from the Yakima-Morelia Sister City Association.

"I saw Oscar play the marimba in Morelia when the students did a recital for us," Moxley said, recalling their meeting. "I said then, 'We need him. I want to bring him here.'"

It took some time to arrange a trip here because of his unconventional instrument. The enormous, difficult-to-assemble marimba takes about three people to lift.

In the meantime, three other musicians from the Morelia conservatory came and went on the orchestra's tab before arrangements could be made for Esqueda. He, like the other students before him, has stayed with a Selah family from Mexico with ties to the music community here.

"I thought I would be practicing the whole time I was here," Esqueda said. "But they've shown me around, introduced me to so many people. I've had the opportunity to make personal connections, have real conversations, with people."

On Sunday, Esqueda performed "Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra" -- written by Brazilian percussionist Ney Rosauro -- with members of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra to a near-packed Seasons Performance Hall.

He stood behind the enormous rosewood instrument -- borrowed from Central Washington University -- holding four thin mallets between his fingers. His hands waved over the keys, at times slow and gentle, then fast and passionate. As he moved his head with the beat, his black ear-length hair bobbed.

"When you play you have to concentrate, so I'm thinking about the music," Esqueda said. "But the sensation this collection of notes, this harmony, produces inside of me is pure pleasure. I enjoy it."

Esqueda grew up in León, a city of 1.3 million famous for its leather shoe and belt industry. His father is a shoemaker, his mother a homemaker. The youngest of seven children, he became fascinated by percussion instruments from listening to his older brothers' rock music albums.

"Nobody else in my family is a musician," he said. "My parents had to make a great sacrifice to buy me a drum kit when I was 8."

They're both very proud of him today, he says. Neither has ever left Mexico.

Esqueda can play dozens of percussion instruments. About six years ago, Esqueda picked up the marimba, which originated in Africa and is popular in Central America.

After high school, Esqueda attended a free public university in Guanajuato for just over two years and performed for money at restaurants and bars on weekends and nights. He saved his earnings to pay for a single semester at Las Rosas -- one of Mexico's premier conservatories -- and made it his mission to earn scholarships once there.

He hasn't had to pay a peso for tuition since. Esqueda practices from 10 to 14 hours each day, plays in a percussion duo called Yoho, and dreams of continuing his training one day in Holland.

The Yakima Symphony Orchestra is the only one Esqueda knows of that pays for Morelia students to travel abroad.

"The fact that I'm here in this place right now -- you don't know how special this is. How much this means," he said.

Already, Yakima's music community plans to bring Esqueda back in May.

"It's the happiest collaboration that we've had with these terrific musicians from Morelia -- and this is the fourth year we've done this," said Brooke Creswell, the orchestra's conductor. "He's a delight to work with. Musically, everything is there.

"Oscar just ... I hear new subtleties and musical things every time I hear him play."

* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 509-577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.

• Jobs
  www.yakjobs.com
• Homes
  www.yakhomes.com
• 
• 
  
• Autos
  www.yakwheels.com

• All Special Pubs Yakima Magazine Channels YakJobs.com YakWheels.com YakHomes.com Playdate Yakima Bride Yakima Wheels (Print) Home Buyer's Guide Baby Brag Book Graduates 2009 Summer in the Valley Prep Football 2009 Women in Business Holiday Gift Guide
• Advertisement