Special to the NEWS
LOS FRESNOS—The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center (NMCAC) is bringing the public the always popular and highly anticipated annual Conjunto festival to be held, once again, in Los Fresnos this weekend.
Celebrating its 29th event, the three-day festival will be held October 7-9, 2022, at Los Fresnos Memorial Park, 900 North Arroyo Blvd., across from Los Fresnos High School.
Admission is $10 per day, per person, or $25 for a three-day pass.
This three-day event is a one-of-a-kind cultural program attracting over 2,500 people for a celebration of the best in live Texas Mexican Conjunto music.
This year the festival will include 16 Conjuntos from the Rio Grande Valley, Dallas, Kingsville, Laredo, Victoria, Seguin and San Antonio, Texas. The 16-band line-up is filled with the most highly skilled musicians who continue to maintain the Conjunto music tradition alive. Also featured will be the Los Fresnos Elementary Conjunto, and the Los Fresnos High School Conjunto Halcon. The line-up includes beginning musicians to the older musicians who are ready to bring Conjunto lovers to the dance floor.
In a statement, NMCAC Co-Founder Rogelio Nunez said that the Conjunto tradition rests on the shoulders of these musicians. The 29th Narciso Martinez Conjunto Festival is the longest running Conjunto festival in the Rio Grande Valley, and one of two festivals within the Conjunto musical genre in the nation. The Narciso Martinez Conjunto Festival is the largest cultural production of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center, which was founded on October 29, 1991, on Narciso Martinez’s 80th birthday.
Martinez, a folk musician considered to be the primary pioneer and the father of Conjunto music, was born in Reynosa, Mexico in 1911. When he was an infant, his family relocated to La Paloma, outside of San Benito, and near Brownsville, where he was raised. His parents were migrant farmworkers and Martínez received no formal education. The Spanish word “conjunto” means “group” and in El Valle de Tejas that means accordion, bajo sexto, and contrabajo (string bass, known locally also as “el tololoche”).
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