By JACOB LOPEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
(Photo of last year’s Conjunto Festival by T.J. Tijerina)
As the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center’s annual Conjunto Fest celebrates its 23rd year, co-founder Rogelio Nuñez is happy to see that the event is still going strong.
Nuñez, who has been involved with the festival since its inception in 1992, couldn’t possibly have known what the next 23 years would bring for the now popular event that San Benito can call its own.
The first Conjunto Fest came together in September 1992. It was a one-day event, but it was popular enough to grow over time into a two-day event and eventually into the three-day blast it is now.
A festival that Nuñez helped organize in 1985 focused around Diez y Seis de Septiembre (May 16th) was the first such celebration for the area. It went “OK,” according to Nuñez, but plans for a follow-up didn’t come through. Nuñez was busy focusing on work at the time and unable to help push forward with plans for more events.
It wasn’t until 1992 that the Conjunto Fest in the form San Benito natives have grown so familiar with emerged again.
Around 1989, Nuñez finished working at UTPA, and he had already been thinking about creating a cultural arts center since the 70s, when he was attending college in Kingsville.
He wanted to focus on the ideals of the Chicano movement. “We needed to create institutions that reflect the community that you come from,” he said.
The idea then came to name this center after Narciso Martinez, “The Father of Conjunto Music” and a product of the San Benito area.
As the festival approaches, Nuñez says “we have calls from everywhere,” including Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Houston and even Chicago. They are all people who are interested in attending Conjunto Fest and many are asking how to find San Benito.
While the three-day event features a variety of bands, many have been performing for years and some are returning to play Conjunto Fest again, Nuñez sees the importance of the new talent as well.
“We’re in a different time … for newer bands its … more difficult,” he explained.
Many of these bands don’t get radio play.
“There are no radio stations that play conjunto. Most are more Tejano, which is okay, but there isn’t a place for conjunto,” he said.
He also feels that the future bands and generations “should continue the struggle of music that was born out of a struggle within a community of people of Mexican origin.”
According to Nuñez, this is a way to keep the culture alive in the U.S., and to continue on “as if the effort to erase our history is still happening.”
Conjunto Fest takes place Friday, Oct. 24 through Sunday, Oct. 25. For the full schedule, as well as performer bios and more details, read the 2014 Narciso Martinez Conjunto Festival Magazine, which is published and inserted within this edition of the San Benito News.
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