Musicology Colloquium Series
Sponsored by The University of New Mexico Department of Music, The Department of Spanish and Portuguese & The Latin American and Iberian Institute
Ortega Hall Reading Room 335
Thursday September 19, 2019
2:00-3:30pm
“Reclaiming ‘the Border’ in Texas-Mexican Conjunto Heritage and Cultural Memory”
Name of presenter: Cathy Ragland
Talk Description:
The Texas border town of San Benito is the subject of this talk which examines how memory and legacy operate within a community of “self-appointed” cultural brokers and a local municipality inspired by capitalist notions of urban development, economic growth and cultural tourism. The legacy of two of the town’s “native sons” – Narciso Martínez, the “father of Tex-Mex conjunto music” and Baldemar Huerta (aka Freddy Fender), a Grammy-winning country rock artist – have been memorialized in two opposing positions to reclaim border music history in a context of globalization and hypermediacy that seeks to counter representations of a US-Mexico border perpetually “in crisis.”
Biography:
Cathy Ragland is associate professor of ethnomusicology in the College of Music at the University of North Texas. She is editor of the series Sonic Crossings for UNT Press, and author of the book Musica Norteña: Mexican Migrants Creating a Nation between Nations along with several journal articles, book chapters, and public press articles. Her research and scholarship have focused on music and border politics, identity, immigration/migration, rurality, and gender relations. She is an experienced journalist, folklorist, and applied ethnomusicologist who has collaborated with Mexican immigrant partners in co-founding sustainable music and arts programs and organizations in New York City. She has directed public arts festivals, exhibits, and arts education programs in New York, Washington, Texas, and Mexico. These experiences have informed her scholarship and teaching.
Congratulations, Susan Kempter and Laurie Lopez!
Susan Kempter and Laurie Lopez were recognized by the New Mexico chapter of the American String Teachers Association earlier this year.
Hearing Heat: An Anthropocene Acoustemology
Bruno Latour argues that even if poisoned, the anthropocene is a deep gift to human research, inciting new approaches to environmental responsibility. Taking up Latour’s challenge through acoustemology, the study of sound as a way of knowing, this talk engages histories of hearing heat that affectively entangle cicadas and humans in Papua New Guinea, Japan, and Greece.
Music from the Americas presents Ensemble Vertebrae
Music from the Americas presents “New Music from Mexico,” featuring world premieres by Juan José Bárcenas, David Hernández-Ramos, José-Luis Hurtado, Victor Ibarra and Rodrigo Valdez-Hermoso. Works will be performed by the Ensemble Vertebrae featuring Oliva Abreu, flute, Ana Paolina Hasslacher, piano and Camille Emaille, percussion.