Earlier this week I brought back the audio of one of my favorite conversations from the vault. Today, the full video version is here.
If you missed the audio episode, here’s the short version: in 2018, Mariana Ramirez became the first female Mexican percussionist to ever perform on a Broadway show, subbing Once On This Island. A year later she held the percussion chair on that show’s national tour. Then came sub work on Head Over Heels (drumset book) and Ain’t Too Proud, plus Off-Broadway runs of Merrily We Roll Along and Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish.
Today she holds the percussion chair at the hit Broadway show SIX.
Available for iOS and Android
But watch this interview and you’ll see the chair is just one piece of a much bigger career.
Mariana began her studies at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City, where she won the percussion position at the Carlos Chávez Youth Orchestra, then earned her Bachelor of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, picking up the Percussive Arts Society Thomas Siwe Scholarship along the way.
She founded Percussion Quartet Excelsis — the first multinational all-female percussion quartet in the U.S. — which Jonathan Haas, head of the NYU Percussion Department, called one of the most innovative and exciting ensembles of this era of chamber music. Excelsis has performed twice on NPR’s From the Top, at the Zeltsman Marimba Festival, Tippet Rise in Montana, and the Newport Classical Music Festival, and in 2024 the group received Chamber Music America’s highest grant.
Her recording credits include Platinum Girls and Song of Solomon on Broadway Records, and a concerto for bandoneon and violin with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has performed with the National Symphony of Mexico, the first all-women orchestra of Mexico, and premiered new works at Alice Tully Hall. She’s appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and in Mozart in the Jungle. She won the FONCA grant for Mexican artists twice in a row, touring an original percussion-and-dance project across five Mexican cities. She teaches. She’s endorsed by Sabian, Pearl, and Innovative Percussion.
Traditional Mexican music. Symphony halls. Chamber ensembles. Television. Education. And eight shows a week on Broadway.
Nobody builds a career like that by waiting for the phone to ring. Watch the conversation and you’ll understand exactly how she did it — starting with a Santana concert in Mexico City when she was 11 years old, watching three percussionists light up a stadium and deciding, right there, what her life was going to be.
Watch the full interview above.
The audio version is available now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify if you’d rather listen on the go.
And coming up next on the podcast: Spencer Inch. Stay tuned — that one’s going to be worth the wait.
For the complete roadmap to building a career in theater, grab Broadway Bound and Beyond at broadwayboundbook.com.
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