Transmission of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music in the 21st century

Abstract

Mexican-American Conjunto music of South Texas is taught outside of the modalities of traditional community cultural transfer in newly created Conjunto ensemble programmes in regional colleges and universities as well as in emerging lower school programmes. This article argues that these new efforts to teach Conjunto music in local ensemble programmes are a model for how regional culture in the United States can be simultaneously preserved as well as taught in community-embedded ways in the absence of state music programmes. They signal the creation of sustainability in culture and in local institutions. Conjunto ensemble programmes bridge the divide between rich folk cultural forms and the incompletely realised or implemented concepts of intangible heritage in the United States, where regional music is fast disappearing or losing coherence and culture, and is often reshaped into something closer to a commodity. Fostering sustainability in Conjunto music and culture through ensembles remains explicitly a locallysourced and politically committed approach.