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The Camperos de Valles, named after their hometown of Ciudad Valles in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, are stellar son huasteco musicians, a tradition rooted in the cultural and geographic Huastecan region overlapping southern Tamaulipas, northern Veracruz, and San Luis Potosí.
Photo by Daniel Sheehy, Smithsonian Institution
The Texmaniacs have fun with their conjunto tejano music on audio engineer Joe Treviño's back porch in San Antonio, Texas. Max Baca (right), on the bajo sexto guitar, says conjunto began with its early pioneers “listening to the German oompa music on the radio in the late 1920s. They would imitate, but in doing so they created their own sound.” To appeal to the younger generation, the Texmaniacs “put it up in high gear while preserving the natural beauty of the traditional music.”
Photo by Daniel Sheehy, Smithsonian Institution
The violinists of Mariachi Los Camperos raise their bows to mark the end of their concert performance. Led by mariachi pioneer Nati Cano (front, right), the group exemplifies the excitement and polish of the modern mariachi sound.
Photo by Daniel Sheehy, Smithsonian Institution
Las Américas: Un Mundo Musical
Introduction
Las Américas, the final and most broad-reaching program of the Nuestra Música: Music in Latino Culture Smithsonian Folklife Festival "living exhibitions" series, featured outstanding artists from the United States and Latin America in an engaging cultural dialogue. The core of the artists came from the Smithsonian Folkways Tradiciones/Traditions recording series. These artists represent the rich diversity of emblematic musical styles in the United States and throughout the Americas, including Puerto Rican bomba, plena, and jíbaro music, Mexican son music from various regions, mariachi music, Colombian vallenato, joropo, and currulao, Dominican merengue típico, bachata, and salve, Venezuelan música llanera, Paraguayan polca, and Salvadoran chanchona music.
In addition to the Festival, Las Américas was featured in a number of related programs including:
- Performance series at the Kennedy Center
- Smithsonian Folkways Tradiciones/Traditions recording series
- Smithsonian Folkways/Smithsonian Global Sound Web site: www.folkways.si.edu
- Música del Pueblo: Smithsonian Virtual Exhibition www.musicadelpueblo.org
- Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum
www.latino.si.edu
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