Desiree Velasco Zavala ’06 Performs with Bad Bunny at Super Bowl

By Carla Meyer

UC Davis Law prides itself on its graduates working in a wide variety of settings. The Super Bowl halftime show was a new one, though.

Desiree Velasco Zavala ’06 played violin in the orchestra during Bad Bunny’s spectacular performance during Super Bowl LX on Sunday, Feb. 8 – even sharing the screen with the music superstar at a few points.

An attorney for nearly two decades, Zavala has worked as a mariachi musician for even longer. A Los Angeles resident, she belongs to the mariacheño trio Grupo Dulce Agave, plays part-time with Grammy-winning group Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea, and has appeared at the Hollywood Bowl and Latin American Music Awards. But the Super Bowl gig was “the honor of my life as a musician,” she said.

She could tell magic was afoot throughout the preparation for the Super Bowl show, Zavala said in a phone interview. But there were so many sets and moving parts that she did not comprehend the full scope until watching a video replay at home.

“Even if you were in it, you were amazed by it in the end,” Zavala said.

Being part of “a celebration of Latino culture on such a big stage” was especially meaningful, she said. A Tucson native, Zavala said her Mexican American parents taught her to take pride in a culture that has flourished in her hometown since Arizona was part of Mexico.

She feels like an ambassador for her culture when she plays, she said, in much the way Bad Bunny pays tribute to his own.

“I really related to so many things in the show,” she said, like Bad Bunny’s inclusion of children and seniors in various vignettes depicting life in Puerto Rico. Zavala often plays to multigenerational crowds in her mariachi gigs.

“This music is for everyone,” she said, and Bad Bunny “really managed to shine a light on that in such amazing ways.”