Master & apprentice — Pedro Avila (right) and Zeth Seven Lara, both from San Benito, wow the crowd during an exceptional performance on Sunday at the Texas Conjunto Hall of Fame & Museum, spotlighting Texas Folklife’s apprentice program. (Ray Quiroga/San Benito News)
By RAY QUIROGA & TRINA “INDI” JOHNSON
publisher@sbnewspaper.com
The Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame & Museum (TCMHFM) enjoyed a week of accolades and highlights as San Benito’s “little museum that could” was recognized as one of the top 10 music museums to visit in Texas and hosted another standing-room-only Texas Folklife event on Sunday.
This small museum with a big heart earned a spot on a statewide list celebrating Texas music culture, as the TCMHFM was recently named one of the top 10 music museums to visit in Texas by the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) Institute of Texan Cultures.
“When my brother Joe sent me the message that we were named as a Top Ten music museum in Texas, listed by the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures, I was thrilled and deeply honored,” expressed TCMHFM Executive Director Patricia Avila. “It was one of those moments that makes you pause and say, ‘Wow, we did this!’”
Founded in 2001 by the late Reynaldo Avila Sr., the museum began as part of the San Benito Museums on Heywood Street, where it operated from 2007 to 2019. Its current home, the famed Azteca building at 402 W. Robertson Street, opened in 2022, where it continues to celebrate the regional music genre that gave the museum its name: conjunto.
“Our mission is to promote, preserve, archive, document, and display the rich history of regional conjunto music by honoring the artists who create it,” remarked Avila. “It’s more than a museum, it’s a living tribute to the music and the people who shaped it.”
Run by the Avila family alongside a team of volunteers, the museum’s heartbeat is communal. “Our museum is operated by the Avila family and a dedicated team of volunteers,” she noted, mentioning Assistant Director Pedro Avila, Treasurer Joe Avila, and Secretary Hermelinda Santana among many others. “It’s a collaborative effort rooted in family, culture, and community pride,” she remarked.
The museum’s origin story reaches beyond state lines. “My parents traveled to Nashville to visit the Country Music Museum, and after that visit, it inspired our father to open a conjunto music hall of fame and museum,” Avila shared. “He knew that if we didn’t tell the story of our regional music and its history, who would do it? He dedicated the rest of his life to his work at the museum.”
Though not a musician himself, Reynaldo Avila Sr. had a deep love of history and a gift for sharing it. “He was always willing to share his knowledge with others,” Avila noted. “Sadly, we lost Dad to cancer on October 13, 2019.”
Then, on Sunday, organizers hosted Texas Folklife leadership and a diverse group of guests of all ages in a standing-room-only event spotlighting Texas Folklife’s Apprentice Program.
According to Texas Folklife’s website, Texas Folklife’s Apprenticeship in the Folk & Traditional Arts Program was established in 1987 to support art forms and traditions that might otherwise be lost, preserving and celebrating the diversity of cultural communities across Texas.
“Whether it is an art form uniquely Texan or one that is practiced in an international culture in diaspora, we support the artistic production of any culture, as long as it is practiced in Texas,” reads the website.
The annual program provides awards of up to $4,500 to approximately eight artist mentors, ensuring they have the opportunity to offer one-on-one training in art, cultural, or heritage practices to dedicated apprentices for a period of six to eight months, according to the site.
By refining artists’ mentors’ approaches to their crafts, broadening apprentices’ skills, and encouraging the transmission of knowledge within and between cultural communities, the apprenticeship program fosters the continuity of Texas’s folk and traditional arts, reads the site.
Since its 1987 launch, the program has supported 403 artist mentors and apprentices, represented 98 cities and towns, championed over 70 traditional art forms, and involved threeNational Heritage Fellows from the NEA, and one Grammy Award winner.
Since its 2015 relaunch, the program has awarded over $135,000 directly to artists and reached more than 40,000 members of the public.
As this year’s application deadline approached, San Benito resident and music instructor Zeth Seven Lara, 25, found himself in a bit of a jam as his initial pick for a student understandably bowed out of the program due to a careerpromotion.
Desperate, Lara approached TCMHFM board member Pedro Avila, 57, as a replacement. As Pedro Avila explained, aside from a few guitar lessons as a child, he had little to no prior experience as a musician.
Furthermore, he did not believe that he was capable of learning an instrument as complex as the button accordion within the allotted timeframe to be performance-ready, as the program dictated.
Adding to the uniqueness of the situation, Lara and Avila were breaking from the traditional mentor-student construct, as Avila was not only older than his teacher but also held 32-year age gap between them.
As an older student, Avila faced other challenges, such as balancing work and his home life, and working through the fact that it’s commonly accepted that younger, developing minds tend to absorb more and learn faster.
Additionally, Avila and Lara were informed that their performance date had been moved up by a few months, giving Avila only three months to learn a set number of standards that were to be performed before Folklife dignitaries and a packed house at the museum.
Still, when the time came on Sunday, a visibly nervous yet excited Avila pulled through with a smile, and with his mentor, Lara, accompanying the fledgling accordionist on the bajo.
The duo was one act on the day that featured presentations and performances by the likes of the Longoria Brothers, as well as two San Antonio-based, Grammy Award-winning artists, Max Baca and Sunny Sauceda, who also served as the event’s MC.
The TCMHFM is now preparing for its annual and always-anticipated induction ceremony and dance, slated for Saturday, July 26, 2025, at San Benito’s Veterans Memorial Academy on Oscar Williams Road. For information about this and other museum events and programs, contact Patricia Avila at (956) 245-5005.
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