Tejano Conjunto Festival

Conjunto Master and PAC Music Instructor Juan Tejeda sent me an email this morning regarding his latest event. If you enjoyed what you heard during PACfest when Juan and his conjunto students took the stage, you're going to really enjoy the 26th Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio! Here's his email:

Camaradas de Conjunto: You may have heard by now that I was contracted to curate this year's 26th Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio 2007, which is a fancy way of saying that I booked the bands, programmed the line-up.

This is the first time I've done this in nine years since I left the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in 1998. I think we have an excellent and exciting line-up in a year that has seen the festival reduced to three days, May 10-12. We have revived the TCF Poster Contest and the Conjunto Music Hall of Fame and we have returned to the raices, acordeon y bajo sexto.

We are presenting some of the most popular performers in the history of conjunto music. My intent was also to showcase those distinctive styles and stylists within conjunto music, like Valerio Longoria, Tony de la Rosa, Paulino Bernal, Ruben Vela, Mingo Saldivar, Ruben Naranjo and Flaco Jimenez, and to show how, even after some of these conjunto greats have passed on, their style and legacy continues in their sons and daughters and the genre in general, such as is the case with Flavio Longoria, Los D Boys, Ricky Naranjo and Linda Escobar.

The festival begins at 5:00 pm today and continues through Saturday. Hope to see you there. Nos vemos. Juan