Rodbel Virula

Alejandro “Rodbel” Virula trained as a guitarrón player and has expanded his skills to become a trumpet player and singer. He moved to Connecticut from Las Vegas in 2016, along with several other musicians, to teach mariachi music in the Wallingford Mexican community, and has stayed in that community ever since. In 2016, Rodbel became director of the performing group Mariachi Mexico Antiguo. They have been invited to play at concerts, festivals, community celebrations, and restaurants throughout the Northeast, and have established a reputation for providing exciting traditional mariachi music that presents a traditional sound and approach. Rodbel and the group recorded 10 videos for the Connecticut Historical Society’s YouTube project to connect folk artists to audiences during quarantine of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He has also been consistently arranging new repertoire for the group, to keep increasing their musical library. Rodbel taught an apprentice on guitarrón as part of the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2016-2017, and he gives private lessons to students. Rodbel won a prestigious Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellowship in 2021.