Their faces line the walls bearing witness to their history and the future they’ve empowered.
They portraits bear strong and familiar names: Pedro Ayala “El Monarca del Acordeon”; Mario Montes; Eva Ybarra.
And most importantly, Narciso Martinez, the father of conjunto music “El Huracan del Valle.”
Martinez’s legacy and that of his musical descendants is being celebrated this month at the City of San Benito’s Cultural Heritage Museum with the exhibit “Conjunto In My Backyard.” The exhibit opens Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and will feature a performance by Conjunto Estrella from San Benito High School.
“We are showcasing conjunto music,” said Aleida Garcia, director of the museum at 250 E. Heywood St.
The exhibit opens in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month but will remain on display until Nov. 5.
“We are taking a look at the past and the present and we’re even going to have discussions about the future of conjunto music for our opening reception.”
Martinez’s granddaughter, Delvia Leoni, appreciated the exhibit’s purpose.
“The way I see it, when anybody celebrates conjunto, they are celebrating my grandfather’s legacy,” she said. “He started conjunto and it’s been going on for a long time. It’s been evolving throughout the years.”
The exhibit features not only the photos of conjunto greats over the years but also small mementos of their lives. A leather jacket, an old wooden squeezebox, a hat, all carrying a remnant of memory from the player’s life.
The exhibit also features paintings by several local artists including Anna Marie Varela, Roel Flores and Gina Palacios.
“What sets this apart from some of the other exhibits would be that I’ve also invited artists to share their work that’s inspired by conjunto music,” Garcia said. “We’ve got Gina Palacios who is inspired very much by the South Texas Region.”
She gestured toward one small painting of a cotton plant. This is in reference to Narciso Martinez’s history of transporting migrants to work the cotton fields. She referred to another Gina Palacios work portraying mesquite trees.
“I’ve heard stories about how in Brownsville, there was a place called Mesquital, and they would actually have bailes (dances) there and they would play conjunto music,” Garcia said. “Everybody knew they would go to that mesquite tree, and that’s where they would have it. And so I picked one of Gina’s mesquite paintings to complement that.”
