My feeling right now is: Where else but through Harvard could I have met el Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, Presidente Felipe Calderón, and former Presidente Vicente Fox in the span of four months?

Here is the video of the week! It’s “Popurri de Mocedades” by el Mariachi Vargas. The songs are all songs performed by Mocedades, a Spanish group famous in the 1970s after they appeared in Eurovision 1973 and reached second place with their song “Eres tú,” the first and last song of this popurri. The songs in the popurri are, in order, “Eres tú,” “Tómame o déjame,” “La otra España,” “¿Quién te cantará?” and it ends with “Eres tú.”

The orchestra’s intro for this song is one of the best I’ve heard for a mariachi song. It is phenomenally conducted and scored to swell to the intro.

I first heard this popurri in 2004 when one of my friends forwarded it to me, along with some Vargas CDs. It hooked me on their sound and their harmonies. This video was recorded at a concert el Mariachi Vargas gave in Queretaro with la Orquesta Filarmónica del Estado de Queretaro, under the direction of José Guadalupe Flores, in 2007 (based on the two harp players and that this concert was released as an album in 2007).

In the coming weeks, I’ll feature more videos of the concert, but this week, only one because it’s eight minutes long. Enjoy.