Estevan Azcona is one of two MFFP summer fellows who balances an academic career with a music performance career. From the time he moved from his native Gary, Indiana, to San Diego, California, the family’s new home, Azcona played instruments, “at first trumpet, then electric bass.” Later, while pursuing a B.A. at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he took playing up the guitarrón, the bass associated with the mariachi.
“I gravitated towards the Department of Music,” he said, noting that he realized his interests exceeded an exclusive performance focus early on. Under the guidance of the ethnomusicology faculty in the Department of Music, Azcona began to focus his studies on Mexican and Chicano music and culture. His senior paper was entitled “The Many Faces of Santa Barbara’s Fiesta: Multileveled History and Identity as Seen through Music.”
Azcona entered the University of Texas at Austin to pursue graduate study and expand his work in ethnomusicology. At this time, he joined the UT ensemble, the Mariachi Paredes de Tejastitlan. He took over teaching the ensemble during his second year there, and has maintained this appointment for the past four years and more. He also began to play mariachi music professionally in Austin, while completing his master’s and doctoral course work. His Master’s of Music thesis dealt with mariachi performance in the Mexican restaurant as it relates to culture, identity, and space.
Regarding the direction of his dissertation research, Azcona said he is examining music during the Chicano movement, particularly Chicano performance practice, the politics of style, and the relationships between music, musicians, and grassroots community. He pointed out that groups such as Los Lobos had initially played a range of American popular music; but, in the 1970s, they wanted to contribute to the Chicano movement, and started to integrate this ethnic cultural heritage into their music. “It’s really that initial point of contact to what we have today that I’m interested in. Because [music production during this time] created new problems and issues around performance: they were playing Mexican music and everyone knew it, but were articulating it in the context of Chicano culture; so although they wanted to valorize those continuities with Mexican culture, they wanted to say it . . . from this side of the border.”
After finishing his course entitled “Music in Mexican America”offered through the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology this summer, Azcona returned to Texas to resume preparation for his field work, to be conducted in San Diego, California. He looked forward to playing mariarchi music again after his summer hiatus, saying of musical performance that “my attention will always be there and with my research.”