A virtual 39th Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival concert will be streamed Saturday, May 22, 2021 from 7pm to 12am from the historic Guadalupe Theater in San Antonio. This annual festival is the first and longest-running Conjunto Festival in the country and is widely recognized as the most influential event for this critical Texas musical tradition. Reflecting the demands of social distancing because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 39th Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival in 2021 will be a live-streamed music event accessible around the world.
"The Tejano Conjunto festival is a beloved yearly event that brings together the very best in conjunto music every year. It is like a big family reunion!" says Cristina Ballí, Executive Director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. "We love our fans and seeing all our old friends in the conjunto community at Rosedale, but since we can't be in person we are happy to share puro conjunto with everyone around the world in this livestream. It will be a lot of fun and not to be missed!"
The Tejano Conjunto Festival showcases the major performers and heritage award winners in one historic and widely anticipated event. It typically draws an enthusiastic audience of more than 10,000 fans, dancers, and musicians from across Texas and the United States, as well as Mexico, Europe, and Asia. The Festival usually encompasses five robust and influential days of live performances, dances, workshops, Hall of Fame inductions, and other events. In 2021, the Guadalupe is pioneering a livestreamed format for the festival.
A featured component of the virtual festival is the Friday night livestream of "Conjunto Blues," a stage play written and performed by Nicolás R Valdez that was recently adapted for the screen in November of 2020 in collaboration with Teatro Vivo and the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. The play will stream live on Friday, May 21, and will be followed by a Q&A session via Zoom with Valdez where viewers will be able to discuss Conjunto Music and its impact on Latino culture along with sharing their own personal stories and memories.
On Saturday, May 22, Valdez will lead a virtual hour-long workshop reflecting on interviews and historical documentary footage he compiled. The topics will revolve around Conjunto's campesino origins; its stylistic evolution; women and the recording industry; Pachucos and nightlife; and prominent figures in conjunto. "The focus of this work, for me, has always been to highlight the many contributions of the Mexican-American community to the cultural fabric of this country and to show audiences how Conjunto Music, an original and uniquely American form of musical expression, became the soundtrack for the 20th century Mexican-American working-class experience," Valdez says.
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