Erin Bauer's research examines the global dissemination of Ibero-American musics through space and time.
Dr. Bauer's dissertation follows the Spanish diferencia across Italy, England, and the Netherlands during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Using corresponding methods of publication, notation, thematic material, structural organization, and recurrent musical figures, her work demonstrates that the Spanish tradition begins with sixteenth-century vihuela compositions, reaches a mature style in the keyboard variations of Antonio de Cabezón, gains stylistic characteristics in widespread European adoption, and returns to Spain in the seventeenth century as a mixture of earlier techniques.
Dr. Bauer's monograph traces the worldwide spread of Texas-Mexican conjunto music during the twentieth century. Exploring performances, recordings, media depictions, hybridizations, and unconventional adoptions of conjunto music throughout the United States and around the world, her work challenges former historiographies of genre as identity to complicate the role of the Texas-Mexican artform among shifting conceptions of the U.S-Mexico border, its people, and its influences worldwide. It follows the music beyond stereotypical understandings of the region to offset primitivist representations of the associated community.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
2023. Flaco's Legacy: The Globalization of Conjunto. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Refereed Journal Articles
2022. “Defining Conjunto Quantitatively: Classical and Modernist Styles in a Texas-Mexican Genre.” American Music 40, no. 1: 75-113.
2022. “The Absence of Texas-Mexican Musics at the South by Southwest Festival.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 34, no. 3: 30-58.
2019. “Blurring Boundaries in Rosedale Park: The Importance of the Tejano Conjunto Festival on the Transnational Dissemination of Traditional Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Latino Studies 17, no 2: 164-186.
2016. “Beyond the Border: Meaning and Authenticity in the Adoption of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music by International Artists.” Latin American Music Review 37, no. 1: 34-64.
2014. “The Participation of Flaco Jiménez on Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music: Cross-Cultural Collaboration and the (Inter)national Discovery of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Rock Music Studies 1, no. 2: 148-169.
Other Journal Contributions
2021. “Flaco Jiménez, Arhoolie Records, and Modern-Day ‘Race Records.’” Journal of Popular Music Studies 33, no. 3: 60-63.
2021. “Roundtable: Pandemic Lessons.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy 11, no. 1: 46-56.
Book Chapters
2023. “‘¡Vamos a Pelear en la Guerra!’: Musical Manifestations of Coalition Building in the South Texas Chicano Movement.” In At the Crossroads of Music and Social Justice, edited by Brenda M. Romero, Susan Asai, David A. McDonald, Andrew G. Snyder, and Katelyn E. Best, 312-338. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
2019. “Native American Vocal Music: Tohono O’odham Songs.” In So You Want to Sing World Music, edited by Matthew Hoch, 101-125. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
2019. “Criticism and Confusion in the Spiritual Transformation of Matisyahu.” In Finding God in the Devil's Music: Critical Essays on Rock and Religion, edited by Alex C. DiBlasi and Robert P. McParland, 105-116. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.
2018. “Reinterpreting the American Western in Ry Cooder’s Soundtrack to Paris, Texas (1984).” In Re-Locating the Sounds of the Western, edited by Kendra Preston Leonard and Mariana Whitmer, 57-73. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing.
2015. “Cross-Cultural, ‘Oompah-Rock’ Identities: Stylistic Unification and Common Background in the Music of Rowwen Hèze and Los Lobos.” In Het dorp en de wereld: dertig jaar Rowwen Hèze, edited by Barbara Beckers and Leonie Cornips, 172-179. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Vantilt Publishers.
Encyclopedia Entries
2020. “Corrido,” “Manu Chao,” and “Steel Guitar.” In Music Around the World: A Global Encyclopedia, edited by Matthew Mihalka and Andrew Martin. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Book/Film Reviews
2020. Review of Contigo (With You), by Dan Boord and Luis Valdovino. Ethnomusicology 64, no. 3: 551-552.
2019. Review of The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles, edited by Josh Kun, and American Sabor: Latinos and Latinas in US Popular Music/Latinos y Latinas en la música popular estadounidense, by Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán. Journal of the Society for American Music 13, no. 4: 535-540.
Invited/Community Publications
2023. “Q&A with Erin E. Bauer, author of Flaco’s Legacy.” University of Illinois Press Blog, May 24.
2023. “Erin E. Bauer Interview.” Music Journalism Insider, May 21.
2023. “Flaco’s Legacy: The Globalization of Conjunto.” Tonantzin.
Dissertation
2014. “The Spanish Diferencia: Stylistic Analysis and Compositional Influence of the Keyboard Variation from Antonio de Cabezón to Juan Bautista José Cabanilles.” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate University.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
2022. “Performing Disability: Stutter Songs in the Late Twentieth Century.” Joint Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and the Society for Music Theory (SMT), New Orleans, November 10-13.
2021. “Narrative vs. Inclusion: Eva Ybarra and the Role of Women in Texas-Mexican Conjunto.” Virtual Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS), November 11-12; 20-21.
2021. “The Globalization of Flaco Jiménez: Migration, Hybridization, and Appropriation in Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Atlanta, GA, October 28-31.
2021. “Teaching with Technology: Organization, Assessment, Equity, and Inclusion.” Virtual Showcase of the Learning Technology Development Council (LTDC), University of Wisconsin System, June 15-16.
2021. “The Noticeable Absence of Tejano Musics at SXSW: Criticism of Selective Transculturalisms.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US Branch (IASPM-US), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) (Rescheduled from 2020 due to COVID-19).
2020. “Genre at the Grammys: Questions of Mainstream Categorization in Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Virtual Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), October 22-25.
2020. “The Noticeable Absence of Tejano Musics at SXSW: Criticism of Selective Transculturalisms.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US Branch (IASPM-US), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), May 21-23 (Cancelled due to COVID-19).
2019. “Texas-Mexican Conjunto as Cultural Folklore: Stylistic Consolidation in the Transnational and Commercial Spread of Regional Accordion Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for American Music (SAM), New Orleans, LA, March 20-24.
2018. “Movimiento Music as Nueva Canción: Conjunto Aztlán, the Chicano Movement, and the Mexican New Song.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Albuquerque, NM, November 15-18.
2018. “The Hybridity of the San Antonio Sound: Cross-Cultural Amalgamations in the Texas-Mexican Accordion Music of Flaco Jiménez, Mingo Saldivar, Esteban Jordan, and Piñata Protest.” Annual Meeting of the American Musicology Society (AMS) and Society for Music Theory (SMT), San Antonio, TX, November 1-4.
2017. “The Wizard and the Cowboy: Genre and Reception in the Texas-Mexican Accordion Music of Esteban Jordan and Mingo Saldívar.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Denver, CO, October 26-29.
2016. “San Antonio’s Piñata Protest as Cultural Renegade: The (Self-Described) ‘Mojado-Punk’ Convergence of Punk Rock and Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US and Canada Branches (IASPM-US/Canada), University of Calgary, Canada, May 28-30.
2016. “Stylistic Unification through Common Socioeconomic Background in the Case of Rowwen Hèze and Los Lobos.” Intercultural Music Conference (IcM), University of California, San Diego, February 26-28.
2015. “Blurring Boundaries in Rosedale Park: The Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio and the Transnational Dissemination of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Austin, TX, December 3-6.
2015. “New Techniques in Digital Musicology: Localizing Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music through Social Network Analysis.” Joint Congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML) and the International Musicological Society (IMS), New York, June 21-26.
2015. “Juanito Castillo, Los Nahuatlatos, and Piñata Protest: Artistry and Identity at the Margins of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music.” Embracing the Margins: Counter-Mainstream Sensibilities in Popular Music, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, March 27-28.
2015. “Religious Identity and Public Reception in the Spiritual Transformation of Matisyahu.” Religion & Politics: Governance, Power, and the Sacred, Eighth Annual Religions in Conversation Conference, Claremont Graduate University, February 27-28.
2015. “The Story of a Neighborhood: Popular Music and Cultural Advocacy in Ry Cooder’s Chávez Ravine (2005).” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US), University of Louisville, February 19-22.
2014. “The Legacy of Lead Belly: Song Choice as Working-Class Association in Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music.” International Conference on the Blues, Delta State University, October 6-7.
2014. “The Digital Network as Modern Cultural Community: Electronic Modes of Personal Belonging for International Conjunto Musicians.” Digital Humanities Forum, Nodes & Networks in the Humanities: Geometries, Relationships, Processes, University of Kansas, September 13.
2014. “Chicken Skin Music as ‘World Music’: Questions of Chronology, Authority, and Appropriation in the Cross-Cultural Collaboration of Ry Cooder and Flaco Jiménez.” Visual Communities: Struggles and Resistance Conference, Claremont Graduate University, April 11.
Dr. Bauer's dissertation follows the Spanish diferencia across Italy, England, and the Netherlands during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Using corresponding methods of publication, notation, thematic material, structural organization, and recurrent musical figures, her work demonstrates that the Spanish tradition begins with sixteenth-century vihuela compositions, reaches a mature style in the keyboard variations of Antonio de Cabezón, gains stylistic characteristics in widespread European adoption, and returns to Spain in the seventeenth century as a mixture of earlier techniques.
Dr. Bauer's monograph traces the worldwide spread of Texas-Mexican conjunto music during the twentieth century. Exploring performances, recordings, media depictions, hybridizations, and unconventional adoptions of conjunto music throughout the United States and around the world, her work challenges former historiographies of genre as identity to complicate the role of the Texas-Mexican artform among shifting conceptions of the U.S-Mexico border, its people, and its influences worldwide. It follows the music beyond stereotypical understandings of the region to offset primitivist representations of the associated community.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
2023. Flaco's Legacy: The Globalization of Conjunto. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Refereed Journal Articles
2022. “Defining Conjunto Quantitatively: Classical and Modernist Styles in a Texas-Mexican Genre.” American Music 40, no. 1: 75-113.
- Abstract: This article analyzes the recorded song choices of a variety of regional and inter/national conjunto artists, using social network visualizations to demonstrate an inverse relationship between location and techniques of modernism. In contemporary conjunto practices, original songs and external elements emanate primarily from younger, local artists, while national and international musicians instead stick closely to the classical style of the established tradition. As such, the classification of contemporary recordings as “conjunto” demonstrates the societal obstinance of essentialist stereotypes according to demographic characteristics. Despite recent narratives of increasing inclusivity in music and culture, such generic depictions indicate the persistence of participatory limitations for music based on ethnicity, class, location, and power.
2022. “The Absence of Texas-Mexican Musics at the South by Southwest Festival.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 34, no. 3: 30-58.
- Abstract: Following the conclusion of the Mexican-American War and continuing through the first half of the twentieth century, the ethnically Mexican population in Texas suffered discrimination and ethno-racial segregation from the dominant, Anglo-Texan community. This systemic structure induced the Texas-Mexican community to create separate, Spanish-speaking social spaces. Tejano and conjunto musics were created in response to these inequitable policies. Separate performance outlets, with distinct priorities and procedures, maintained a musical community outside of mainstream recording practices. This Texas-Mexican musical community– separate and distinctive from the hegemonic industry– has been maintained in contemporary practices, as demonstrated by the absence of Texas-Mexican artists at the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. From its beginnings in 1987, SXSW has drawn a diverse assortment of record labels, booking agents, promoters, managers, artists, and audiences. Although the festival started with a regional focus, billed as a means to bring together Texas music and the rest of the world, Tejanx participation is sparse, indicating a continuing separation between these two communities. Yet, SXSW has strategically attracted international artists and historically Black American genres. This paper uses numeric and ethnographic evidence to examine this selective absence of Tejano musics at SXSW.
2019. “Blurring Boundaries in Rosedale Park: The Importance of the Tejano Conjunto Festival on the Transnational Dissemination of Traditional Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Latino Studies 17, no 2: 164-186.
- Abstract: The contemporary transnational dissemination of Texas-Mexican accordion music has corresponded closely to the rise in prominence of the Tejano Conjunto Festival, sponsored by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio and, since 1982, held annually at Rosedale Park. In modern popular culture, the ease of transnational mobilization – here characterized by global participation in a local music festival – effectively blurs traditional boundaries of class, ethnicity, language, and location. However, this notion of inclusivity masks problematic and long-lasting hegemonies. Simultaneously, it shifts the historiographic narrative of conjunto as cultural resistance (within a tightly constrained notion of Texas-Mexican culture).
2016. “Beyond the Border: Meaning and Authenticity in the Adoption of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music by International Artists.” Latin American Music Review 37, no. 1: 34-64.
- Abstract: Since the 1990s, Texas-Mexican conjunto music has been adopted around the world, raising contemporary considerations of sociological significance in newly widespread musical repertories. In an increasingly postnational world, regional cultural commodities and notions of musical authenticity are no longer confined to an individual race, class, language, or location. For international conjunto musicians, the capacity to create an individual identity based on common stylistic heritages, socioeconomic backgrounds, imagined familial connections, and simply aesthetic attraction demonstrates that popular music can serve to rearticulate a sense of belonging for musicians accessible only through new forms of electronic dissemination.
2014. “The Participation of Flaco Jiménez on Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music: Cross-Cultural Collaboration and the (Inter)national Discovery of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Rock Music Studies 1, no. 2: 148-169.
- Abstract: In the second half of the twentieth century, Texas-Mexican conjunto music changed from a highly localized and often stylistically stagnant regional genre to an innovative musical style increasingly popular among an international audience. This widespread artistic acknowledgement was largely stimulated by the participation of Flaco Jiménez on Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music in 1976, drawing certain superficial parallels with the following world music movement through the underlying suggestion of inequitable cultural appropriation. However, this case instead demonstrates that the increasing contemporary mixture of cultures, even among socioeconomically inequitable groups, can alternatively produce a valuable and mutually advantageous cross-cultural consequence.
Other Journal Contributions
2021. “Flaco Jiménez, Arhoolie Records, and Modern-Day ‘Race Records.’” Journal of Popular Music Studies 33, no. 3: 60-63.
- Abstract: During the 1920s to 1940s, so-called “record men” toured the southern United States, recording Black American, and later, Mexican American folk musicians for distribution as “race records.” Although these labels distributed the recordings beyond the immediate region, they created a strict correlation between the music and the identity of the associated musicians and audiences. In the case of Texas-Mexican conjunto, these so-called “race records” effectively restricted the genre to homologous interpretations of music as identity; conjunto as fundamentally tied to race and thus external to mainstream considerations. During the 1970s to 1990s, niche record labels like Arhoolie and Arista Texas produced LPs of conjunto music by artists like Flaco Jiménez. As with the “race records” of the early twentieth century, these recordings disseminated Texas-Mexican accordion music among a widespread population. However, just as with previous practices, these albums also pigeonholed artists like Flaco as quintessentially “conjunto,” intrinsically tied to identity-based notions of genre, despite actual musical characteristics or intent. This paper traces the mainstream definition of “conjunto” to recording practices of the twentieth century, noting that later albums simply replicate homologous and exploitative practices of early “record men.” They effectively “other” musicians as cultural representatives, rather than independent artists, and thus limit consideration of the music outside of racial bounds.
2021. “Roundtable: Pandemic Lessons.” Journal of Music History Pedagogy 11, no. 1: 46-56.
- Abstract: During the rapid shift to distance learning during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, many instructors re-evaluated old pedagogical tools and stratgies and adopted new ones. Some of these innovations proved to be so useful that instructors intend to keep these practices as they return to their face-to-face classrooms. This roundtable discusses such pedagogical adaptations, focusing particularly on new approaches to course organization and content delivery, class discussion and student participation, assessment, a pedagogy of care, and technological teaching tools.
Book Chapters
2023. “‘¡Vamos a Pelear en la Guerra!’: Musical Manifestations of Coalition Building in the South Texas Chicano Movement.” In At the Crossroads of Music and Social Justice, edited by Brenda M. Romero, Susan Asai, David A. McDonald, Andrew G. Snyder, and Katelyn E. Best, 312-338. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Abstract: Through traditional genres and instruments combined with politically and socially charged lyrics, the music of the Chicano Movement, or movimiento music, connects to the Nueva Canción movement throughout Latin America to affirm a powerful sense of cultural identity and carve out a new musical space for the Mexican diaspora in the United States. Movimiento artists draw from their indigenous, Spanish, and mestizo heritages to root an art in ethnic Mexican culture and society. These musicians contribute to Mexican-American activism alongside César Chavez, the National Farm Workers Association, and the general pursuit for bilingual education, integration in schooling and housing, and a more open job market in the United States during the 1960s-1990s. In more recent years, the Chicano rock scene of East Los Angeles has maintained many of the social justice themes of earlier movimiento music. However, while the Chicano Movement and its associated music are commonly situated in California, Texas-Mexican musicians like Conjunto Aztlán have also participated in movimiento music. Using Conjunto Aztlán as a case study, this chapter will examine the activist impulses of conjunto musicians in South Texas, drawing connections to movimiento musicians in California and thus examining the role of music in issues of social justice throughout the United States. While Texas-Mexican conjunto is historically representative of working-class ethnic identity (through academic studies by Manuel Peña, for example), these creative connections challenge former understandings of sociocultural significance for both audiences and participants. As conjunto becomes increasingly connected to issues of social justice, the music itself develops new meanings among middle-class, multi-ethnic communities.
2019. “Native American Vocal Music: Tohono O’odham Songs.” In So You Want to Sing World Music, edited by Matthew Hoch, 101-125. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
- Abstract: Previously known as Papago, a derogatory term from the Spanish for "bean eaters," the Tohono O'odham ("desert people") are a Native American people from the Sonoran Desert, spanning the often-contentious border between southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Traditional songs of the Tohono O'odham comprise an oral tradition initiated through the inspiration of dreams and subsequently passed down from generation to generation. Songs are concise, descriptive, evocative of an event, often repetitive, and typically correspond to a specific social or ceremonial purpose. These vocal works are accompanied by hard wood rasps, drumming on overturned baskets, and a shuffling style of dance. In contrast, Tohono O'odham waila (or chicken scratch) music draws from Mexican norteño music (itself an interpretation of German polka music) through the use of saxophone, accordion, bass, guitar, and drums and rarely incorporates the singing voice. In recent years, the younger generation of Tohono O'odham have combined elements of American popular music with traditional songs, creating a hybridized form of folk/hip-hop. This essay explores the traditional songs of the Tohono O'odham people and compare these works with the vocal elements (and lack of vocal elements) in contemporary waila music and other related forms.
2019. “Criticism and Confusion in the Spiritual Transformation of Matisyahu.” In Finding God in the Devil's Music: Critical Essays on Rock and Religion, edited by Alex C. DiBlasi and Robert P. McParland, 105-116. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.
- Abstract: Matthew Paul Miller, best known by his Hebrew name and stage name, Matisyahu, achieved fame in the first decade of the twenty-first century as a Hasidic, reggae rapper and alternative rock musician. The most notable part of that equation, at least within the Jewish community and momentarily disregarding the equally inimitable combination of reggae, rap, and rock (not to mention the incorporation of beat-boxing, scat singing, and Jewish hazzan style of songful prayer), was the distinctively religious aspect to Matisyahu's public identity as well as his music, particularly given the musician's positionality within the more mainstream world of American popular culture. Yet, in December of 2011, Matisyahu posted a picture of himself on Twitter without a beard, explaining, "No more Chassidic reggae superstar. Sorry folks, all you get is me...no alias," and creating confusion and controversy among his Jewish (and other) fans. In June of 2012, the musician appeared without a yarmulke, adding fuel to the already blazing media frenzy. This essay traces the spiritual journey, musical evolution, and complicated public reactions to the Hasidic reggae superstar, considering the meaning of religious identity within the modern rock community and the dichotomous commitment of fans to music and meaning alike.
2018. “Reinterpreting the American Western in Ry Cooder’s Soundtrack to Paris, Texas (1984).” In Re-Locating the Sounds of the Western, edited by Kendra Preston Leonard and Mariana Whitmer, 57-73. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing.
- Abstract: Ry Cooder's haunting score for Paris, Texas (1984), consisting of a single, unaccomanied acoustic guitar, sets the stage for a sonic reinterpretation of the classic American Western. Through the evocative music used throughout this contemporary film, the typical struggle of the new frontier becomes a personal struggle of identity, loneliness, and regret. The geography of the frontier itself is represented not only by the desolate, Western landscape, but also through the disintegration of familial relationships and the associated desolation of a single, tormented soul. In this modern interpretation, the expected wandering gunslinger is replaced by a silent, alcoholic amnesiac, a desperate man fighting a battle not with rustlers or Indians, but within himself. Evoking the Hollywood Western through the sparseness of its geographic setting and classic devices of its iconic soundtrack, Paris, Texas suggests the prototypical male protagonist through the tortured character of Travis Henderson, but twists the "classic" formula to comment on the complexities of relationships in contemporary American life.
2015. “Cross-Cultural, ‘Oompah-Rock’ Identities: Stylistic Unification and Common Background in the Music of Rowwen Hèze and Los Lobos.” In Het dorp en de wereld: dertig jaar Rowwen Hèze, edited by Barbara Beckers and Leonie Cornips, 172-179. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Vantilt Publishers.
- Abstract: Faced with too many cultural possibilities in the chaos of modern life, musicians around the world are often drawn to what is familiar, although perhaps not historically typical, to form a personal sense of belonging outside of traditional positional boundaries. In the case of Rowwen Hèze, the socioeconomic background, counter-hegemonic symbolism, and accordion-based musical characteristics of Los Lobos create a familiar sense of cultural community, despite dramatic differences of geographical circumstance.
Encyclopedia Entries
2020. “Corrido,” “Manu Chao,” and “Steel Guitar.” In Music Around the World: A Global Encyclopedia, edited by Matthew Mihalka and Andrew Martin. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Book/Film Reviews
2020. Review of Contigo (With You), by Dan Boord and Luis Valdovino. Ethnomusicology 64, no. 3: 551-552.
2019. Review of The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles, edited by Josh Kun, and American Sabor: Latinos and Latinas in US Popular Music/Latinos y Latinas en la música popular estadounidense, by Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán. Journal of the Society for American Music 13, no. 4: 535-540.
Invited/Community Publications
2023. “Q&A with Erin E. Bauer, author of Flaco’s Legacy.” University of Illinois Press Blog, May 24.
2023. “Erin E. Bauer Interview.” Music Journalism Insider, May 21.
2023. “Flaco’s Legacy: The Globalization of Conjunto.” Tonantzin.
Dissertation
2014. “The Spanish Diferencia: Stylistic Analysis and Compositional Influence of the Keyboard Variation from Antonio de Cabezón to Juan Bautista José Cabanilles.” PhD diss., Claremont Graduate University.
- Abstract: Representative examples of the Spanish keyboard variation appear initially in the works of the early vihuelists, with the dominant stylistic foundation subsequently realized through the keyboard music of Antonio de Cabezón (c.1510-1566) and similarly continued in the later compositions of Juan Bautista José Cabanilles (1644-1712). Comparable techniques of variation emerge in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century keyboard music of southern Italy, England, Germany, and the Netherlands, suggesting the creative influence of the preceding Spanish tradition. Corresponding methods of publication, notation, thematic material, and structural organization, as well as recurrent musical figures demonstrate that the Iberian diferencia tradition begins with the sixteenth-century vihuela compositions, reaches a mature style in the keyboard variations of Cabezón, gains additional stylistic characteristics through widespread European adoption, and ultimately returns to Spain in the seventeenth century as an amalgamation of earlier techniques.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
2022. “Performing Disability: Stutter Songs in the Late Twentieth Century.” Joint Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS) and the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and the Society for Music Theory (SMT), New Orleans, November 10-13.
2021. “Narrative vs. Inclusion: Eva Ybarra and the Role of Women in Texas-Mexican Conjunto.” Virtual Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS), November 11-12; 20-21.
2021. “The Globalization of Flaco Jiménez: Migration, Hybridization, and Appropriation in Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Atlanta, GA, October 28-31.
2021. “Teaching with Technology: Organization, Assessment, Equity, and Inclusion.” Virtual Showcase of the Learning Technology Development Council (LTDC), University of Wisconsin System, June 15-16.
2021. “The Noticeable Absence of Tejano Musics at SXSW: Criticism of Selective Transculturalisms.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US Branch (IASPM-US), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) (Rescheduled from 2020 due to COVID-19).
2020. “Genre at the Grammys: Questions of Mainstream Categorization in Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Virtual Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), October 22-25.
2020. “The Noticeable Absence of Tejano Musics at SXSW: Criticism of Selective Transculturalisms.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US Branch (IASPM-US), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), May 21-23 (Cancelled due to COVID-19).
2019. “Texas-Mexican Conjunto as Cultural Folklore: Stylistic Consolidation in the Transnational and Commercial Spread of Regional Accordion Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for American Music (SAM), New Orleans, LA, March 20-24.
2018. “Movimiento Music as Nueva Canción: Conjunto Aztlán, the Chicano Movement, and the Mexican New Song.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Albuquerque, NM, November 15-18.
2018. “The Hybridity of the San Antonio Sound: Cross-Cultural Amalgamations in the Texas-Mexican Accordion Music of Flaco Jiménez, Mingo Saldivar, Esteban Jordan, and Piñata Protest.” Annual Meeting of the American Musicology Society (AMS) and Society for Music Theory (SMT), San Antonio, TX, November 1-4.
2017. “The Wizard and the Cowboy: Genre and Reception in the Texas-Mexican Accordion Music of Esteban Jordan and Mingo Saldívar.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Denver, CO, October 26-29.
2016. “San Antonio’s Piñata Protest as Cultural Renegade: The (Self-Described) ‘Mojado-Punk’ Convergence of Punk Rock and Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US and Canada Branches (IASPM-US/Canada), University of Calgary, Canada, May 28-30.
2016. “Stylistic Unification through Common Socioeconomic Background in the Case of Rowwen Hèze and Los Lobos.” Intercultural Music Conference (IcM), University of California, San Diego, February 26-28.
2015. “Blurring Boundaries in Rosedale Park: The Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio and the Transnational Dissemination of Texas-Mexican Accordion Music.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Austin, TX, December 3-6.
2015. “New Techniques in Digital Musicology: Localizing Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music through Social Network Analysis.” Joint Congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML) and the International Musicological Society (IMS), New York, June 21-26.
2015. “Juanito Castillo, Los Nahuatlatos, and Piñata Protest: Artistry and Identity at the Margins of Texas-Mexican Conjunto Music.” Embracing the Margins: Counter-Mainstream Sensibilities in Popular Music, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, March 27-28.
2015. “Religious Identity and Public Reception in the Spiritual Transformation of Matisyahu.” Religion & Politics: Governance, Power, and the Sacred, Eighth Annual Religions in Conversation Conference, Claremont Graduate University, February 27-28.
2015. “The Story of a Neighborhood: Popular Music and Cultural Advocacy in Ry Cooder’s Chávez Ravine (2005).” Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US), University of Louisville, February 19-22.
2014. “The Legacy of Lead Belly: Song Choice as Working-Class Association in Ry Cooder’s Chicken Skin Music.” International Conference on the Blues, Delta State University, October 6-7.
2014. “The Digital Network as Modern Cultural Community: Electronic Modes of Personal Belonging for International Conjunto Musicians.” Digital Humanities Forum, Nodes & Networks in the Humanities: Geometries, Relationships, Processes, University of Kansas, September 13.
2014. “Chicken Skin Music as ‘World Music’: Questions of Chronology, Authority, and Appropriation in the Cross-Cultural Collaboration of Ry Cooder and Flaco Jiménez.” Visual Communities: Struggles and Resistance Conference, Claremont Graduate University, April 11.