Larry Quirco is standing in the doorway of the family home in south Alamosa smiling and grinning and telling stories of his daughter, Aspen.
“The stage don’t scare her, man. Matter of fact, she likes it,” says Quirco, a proud father whose daughter, Aspen, performed with Puerto Rican sensation Bad Bunny during halftime of Super Bowl LX.
After she did, her phone blew up and the Quirco family has been dealing with the fame ever since.
Quirco said he remembers Aspen mentioning that she had an opportunity to play with Bad Bunny.
She says, “Hell yeah, I’ll go,” Quirco recalls.
If you didn’t know of Aspen Quirco, you do now. She has been making Denver TV appearances and growing her fame online ever since she showed up playing her violin as part of the musical entourage supporting Bad Bunny and his widely-anticipated Super Bowl halftime show.
Her family knew she would be performing but honestly, her dad says, he didn’t see her on the field because the show was so massive that he missed her in the sea of performers. He also isn’t online, doesn’t have a smartphone and doesn’t really understand Tik Tok or any of the other social media platforms.
So he missed the huge outpouring of congratulations his daughter received from her halftime appearance.
“Proud though, man,” he says.
Aspen is Larry and Amelia Quirco’s only child. Dad says she took up playing the fiddle at around age 6 and gained in her skills playing for Mariachi San Luis. She eventually left Alamosa for a music school in Boston, now resides in Los Angeles, and through the years has carved out a living as a mariachi musician.
“She likes being up there,” her father says of his daughter’s performance. “And she’s good at it, too. And she makes her own music, too. She plays a lot … She plays any kind of music.”
She recently toured with Peso Pluma, a Mexican singer and rapper. But it was her cameo in the Bad Bunny halftime show that has created greater awareness for the musician and her family.
“I tell her, ‘Man, get a damn job.’ She said, ‘This is my job,’” her dad says, smiling and laughing.
He has been sick of late and Aspen has been coming home to help out with his care. He knows music is her life but because he isn’t online, maybe isn’t aware of just how popular his daughter has become.
“It was a good thing for her,” he says of the Super Bowl performance with Bad Bunny. “I’m proud of her.”
As is all of Alamosa.