Good news from Texas is that Cristina Ballí is the new executive director of Texas Folklife. She used to be the head of the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center in San Benito, among other positions, so this is a positive sign that there will be a strong advocate for conjunto in the organization. Kind of amazingly, this is the first director who is fluent in Spanish.

Over at the Reyes Forum, which is the central discussion board about Conjunto music, one of the main members welcomed her and then immediately asked "Now that you are the director please try to get a soundman that has experience with the genre of Tejano/Conjunto because last year [at the Big Squeeze accordion contest in Austin] many of the students and artist were having major issues with the sound."

It will be nice that someone who gets it is now in charge.

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