A party of 36 young Mazatlán musicians, along with three adults, has joined the jet set. They just returned from a three-day junket to San Francisco, California, U.S.A. They flew to the city by the Golden Gate to play for a reception given by Mayor Willie Brown at City Hall. The guests were a combined group of top Mexican and American business executives attending a U.S. State Department-sponsored “ Partnership for Prosperity ” conference. The Mazatlán Youth Symphony Orchestra (Spanish initials OSJM) was invited by an organization called Contacto Cultural Mexico-U.S. via the cultural arm of the American Embassy in Mexico City. It seems that the school where these young musicians practice and learn to play their instruments, the Mazatlán Center for the Arts, next door to the Angela Peralta Theater in Old Mazatlán, has found a spotlight in the United States. Last year the center won a U.S.$10,000 “ Growing Up Taller ” award that was delivered in Washington, D.C. to school director Ricardo Urquijo by the first lady, Mrs. Laura Bush herself. The award was given because of the school´s outreach program, which brings demonstrations of music, dance, storytelling and arts & crafts workshops to the outlying areas of the municipality of Mazatlán. The last-minute invitation for the orchestra to play at the reception caused a scramble here in Mazatlán. Gathering enough money for travel expenses was a cliffhanger. Various local citizens chipped in, and Ricardo wheedled some funds from Juan S. Millan, Sinaloa´s governor, out of the state cultural budget. Ironically, some of the money raised had to go to pay for visas to enter the United States, at 100 U.S. dollars a pop, plus the cost of transportation to the American consulate in Guadalajara to get them. You think wheels in Mexico don´t turn very fast? The children and the parents of those under age 16 went by bus to the American Consulate in Guad-alajara on Thursday; the orchestra flew from Mazatlán to San Francisco on Saturday. Without much lead time, it was difficult to get airline reservations, too. The group had to split into three, 10 to fly America West to San Francisco from Mazatlán via Phoenix, 10 to fly to Guadalajara on Air

California, then America West from Guadalajara to Phoenix, and the 19 youngest, sheph-erded by Ricardo, flying Air Alaska nonstop to San Francisco. It seemed there was no budget at the California end to meet the group, let alone transport them and their instruments around San Francisco. They had some unofficial assistance from a Mexican exchange student and his friend, but for the most part, says Ricardo, “ We walked. We spent Sunday walking from downtown San Francisco to Chinatown to North Beach to Fisherman´s Wharf and back again. But we did get a ride on a cable car, and when the conductor found out we were a visiting orchestra, he let us ride for free!” A volunteer with a van helped transport the instruments to the Monday evening reception. “ He had to make two trips,” says Ricardo. “ The rest of us walked to City Hall.” (From their hotel near the Geary Theater, it is 14 long blocks, about a mile and a half, to Civic Center.) The reception itself, he says, was a glittering affair with local professional musicians playing soft music at first, then the OSJM starting their turn with a rousing rendition of “ Guadalajara.” Ricardo says it brought down the house. Because there were no San Francisco hosts, Ricardo had to pinch his pennies all the way. “ The first night there I took everybody to dinner at a restaurant near the hotel, and the bill came to $450! After that, we ate at McDonald´s.” Walking, skimping on a diet of hamburgers, worrying over transport for their instruments. Was it worth it in the end? Ricardo explains that he was anxious to expose the youth orchestra to those top Mexican executives, people such as the presidents of Telmex and Pan Bimbo and Bancomer and Cementos Mexicans who were attending the conference. His reasoning: The widow of Don Cruz Lizarraga, the founder of the Banda El Recodo, has donated a piece of land next door to the center in her late husband´s name. Now what´s needed is the money to build. The school director may have added a few gray hairs to his already-gray mop by making such a harrowing trip, but he feels that the orchestra definitely made an impression on those Mexican big shots. “And besides,” he says with his ever-ready smile, “ the kids had a ball.”