By DAVID LOPEZ
Special to the NEWS
The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum celebrated its newly formed alliance with The Texas Music Hall of Fame Commission last Saturday.
Julio Avila – grandson of the late Rey Avila Sr., founder of the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum – represented the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Kilgore to officially accept the invitation of the Commission and sign the Official Charter Alliance of the Texas Music Hall of Fame.
This alliance allows the organization to network, share ideas and consult with other music-based museums throughout the state of Texas that share the value of preserving, educating, and promoting Texas music history.
The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and Museum will now also be included in the Texas Music History Trail. Backed by federal funding, this trail map was designed to promote and attract tourists from around the world to visit music halls of fame and museums throughout Texas.
According to Avila, the Commission had attempted to garner funds from the State of Texas only to be turned away multiple times. Despite submitting a bill to the 84th legislature seeking to establish the Texas Music History Trail, the state voted against the bill, and two years later introduced a bill of their own, plagiarizing the Commission’s original bill and attempting to establish the official Texas Music Museum in Austin.
“What these organizations were trying to argue at the meeting was that while Austin can tell you about Texas music history, Austin is not Texas music history,” Avila said. “There are so many other places, our Conjunto Museum being one of them, where an authentic genre of music was created.”
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