{"id":8611,"date":"2018-06-08T16:50:04","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T16:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8611"},"modified":"2018-06-08T16:50:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T16:50:04","slug":"los-fresnos-gives-a-prelude-of-upcoming-october-conjunto-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8611","title":{"rendered":"Los Fresnos Gives a Prelude of Upcoming October Conjunto Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Conjunto<\/a>

Conjunto music fans turned the community center into a dance hall. Photos: Tony Vindell\/LFN<\/p><\/div>\n

by Tony Vindell\/LFN<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A Rio Grande Valley conjunto band entertained a group of people at Los Fresnos Community Center on Wednesday of last week.<\/p>\n

The group, called Ruben de la Cruz y su Conjunto, played and sang several tunes familiar to such genre of music.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the concert was actually a prelude of the Narciso Martinez Conjunto Festival scheduled to be held on Oct. 19, 20 and 21 of this year.<\/p>\n

Rogelio Nu\u00f1ez, director of an arts center that bears the name of the famous player, gave an overview of the history of conjunto music.<\/p>\n

He said that conjunto music was started by Narciso Martinez, a Reynosa (Mexico) native who grew up in a small community west of Brownsville called La Paloma.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez said Martinez added the bajo sexto, or the 12-string guitar, to his music.<\/p>\n

The rest is history, he said, adding the music the band was to play Wednesday night is a preview of what is coming at the October festival.<\/p>\n

The band played a repertoire of huapango, polkas, boleros and other tunes familiar to Hispanic and Mexican-American cultures.<\/p>\n

Some attending the event stepped on the floor of the community center to dance as Ruben De La Cruz, of Edouch-Elsa, played the accordion and his partner, Frank \u201cPancho\u201d Hernandez of San Benito, strung the bajo sexto.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s presentation of conjunto music drew several dozen people who were also treated to hot coffee provided by Organo Gold and to \u201csanhuichitos\u201d courtesy of Wal-Mart.<\/p>\n

Los Fresnos is now the headquarters of the conjunto festival, following meetings between the city council, the Community Development Corp. and the non-profit organization run by Nu\u00f1ez.<\/p>\n

\"Ruben<\/a>

Ruben De La Garza, left, and Pancho Hernandez, playing conjunto music during last week\u2019s concert.<\/p><\/div>\n

The City of San Benito has held the festival for the last 25 years but the fees the city wanted this time was beyond what organizers hoped to spend.<\/p>\n

Board members with CDC unanimously allocated $5,000 for the project relocation during a February meeting, saying that will put Los Fresnos at the forefront of a music culture born in this part of the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, this a gift served on a silver platter,\u201d Enrique C. Juarez, the board\u2019s president, said at the time. \u201cAnd culturally, this is a gold mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said having the Conjunto Festival here, fits perfectly with their plans to make Los Fresnos a major cultural and tourist destination.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez said they decided to go after another place to relocate the center from its original home base in San Benito for a major reason \u2013 economics.<\/p>\n

San Benito was asking close to $18,000 a year to have the center and festival, which he said is beyond their means.<\/p>\n

David Garza, commissioner for Cameron County\u2019s Precinct 3, also said the two centers and the festival are like no other cultural-oriented activity in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the few things that brings entire families together,\u201d he said during a February meeting. \u201cThis will be a great opportunity for Los Fresnos, the school district and for everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Tony Vindell\/LFN A Rio Grande Valley conjunto band entertained a group of people at Los Fresnos Community Center on Wednesday of last week. The group, called Ruben de la Cruz y su Conjunto, played and sang several tunes familiar to such genre of music. The idea behind the concert was actually a prelude of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8625,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8611\/revisions\/8625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}