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LOS FRESNOS — The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center has won national recognition for its more than 30 years of work preserving and promoting conjunto music and Mexican American arts.
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, the country’s premier Mexican American arts institution in San Antonio, has honored the Los Fresnos-based arts center as the first organization it’s installed in its internationally renown Conjunto Music Hall of Fame.
Before a sold-out audience at San Antonio’s Guadalupe Theater on May 18, the institution honored the arts center’s co-founders Rogelio Nunez, Ramon De Leon and David Garza, the longtime Cameron County commissioner.
“It feels fabulous,” Nunez said during an interview. “It’s a major honor. It’s the organization’s recognition of the work we’ve done in the Rio Grande Valley in terms of Mexican American cultural programming for 32 years.”
Preserving conjunto music
The recognition’s based on the arts center’s staging of its annual Conjunto Festival and its work in promoting Mexican American arts along the border, Cristina Balli, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s executive director, said.
“We wanted to recognize their hard work of 30 years in being pioneers in the work of cultural preservation in the Rio Grande Valley,” she said during an interview.
For years, Balli helped lead the arts center to national recognition during its long tenure in San Benito.
“Rogelio and Ramon were some of the first people to start recognizing conjunto as a cultural treasure on the border at a time when this culture was not recognized and wasn’t cool,” Balli, who served as the center’s director from 2004 to 2007, said. “They worked very hard at presenting the conjunto festival for 30 years and that alone deserves recognition. To me, (the arts center) is a very special place because it was the launching pad for the rest of my career.”
National acclaim
In 1991, Nunez, De Leon and Garza founded the arts center, named after Narciso Martinez, the master accordionist from La Paloma credited as the founder of the genre he pioneered in San Benito’s cantinas before recording the music at the legendary Ideal Records studio.
“There was a vacuum here in the Valley — 32 years ago, there was no space to bring Mexican American arts to this region,” Nunez said. “We’ve been programming some of the best Mexican American artists in the country. We feel it’s important.”
The center’s entry into the emerging Mexican American arts scene soon helped lead to the launching of the CineSol Film Festival, the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame and Museum and the South Texas Conjunto Association.
“The center opened up this world of art,” Nunez said. “We’re in the forefront of the cultural movement.”
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s recognition further acknowledges the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center’s national reach.
In 1999, the Smithsonian Institution lauded the arts center’s Conjunto Festival with a CD titled “Taquachito Nights,” featuring recordings of some of conjunto music’s last pioneers playing the previous year’s concerts.
Jump-starting cultural programming
Years after building its standing in the Mexican American cultural arts scene, the arts center moved from San Benito to Los Fresnos in 2018.
This summer, the center jump-starts its arts programming after holding off since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
“It’s important to do programming because the strength of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center is its programming,” Nunez said. “The summer program is one way to introduce the work of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center to Los Fresnos and the region.”
Summer program
On June 25, Manuel Medrano, a retired University of Texas at Brownsville historian, is set to present a lecture based on his acclaimed series of documentaries “Los Del Valle,” featuring the legacies of artists such as Martinez and master accordionist Valerio Longoria along with author and folklorist Americo Paredes at Los Fresnos City Hall.
“He’s one of the best scholars of history in the Rio Grande Valley and the nation specializing in Mexican American history,” Nunez said, referring to Medrano.
In July, the center showcases the work of Austin filmmaker Hector Galan, who produced the documentaries “Songs of the Homeland,” set to be screened July 9, and “Accordion Dreams,” screening July 23 at Los Fresnos City Hall.
“He produced three major important works on conjunto music from a historical perspective,” Nunez said. “He focused on conjunto music and the importance of the music.”
On Aug. 4, the arts center presents a program titled “Conjunto meets Cajun Music,” featuring Charles Thibodeaux and the Austin Cajun Aces along with the Laureles Chicken Club at the Los Fresnos Community Center.
“While we are a major home to conjunto music, there are other music genres that use the accordion, Cajun being one,” Nunez said. “It’s roots music created in a world that wasn’t mainstream. The idea is to introduce the sound so the community gets to listen to another accordion-driven music that’s not conjunto.”
On Aug. 20, the center features German record producer Chris Strachwitz’s classic documentary “Chulas Frontera,” featuring some of conjunto music’s legendary pioneers, at Los Fresnos City Hall.
“One of his main goals was to make sure the music got preserved so he went all around the world looking for music that may not have been produced,” Nunez said of Strachwitz, founder of the groundbreaking roots music label Arhoolie Records.
In 1990s, Strachwitz traveled to San Benito, where he bought Ideal Records’ master recordings capturing some of conjunto music’s classics, turning them into CDs.
“If he hadn’t bought the masters from Ideal, what would have happened to all those masters — if it’s not preserved, it becomes extinct,” Nunez said.
Then on Sept. 1, the center closes its summer program with a conjunto jam at Los Fresnos Community Center.
The summer program will lead to the arts center’s 30th annual Conjunto Festival set for Oct. 6 and 7 at Los Fresnos Memorial Park.
