Roberto Martinez recorded one of his most famous corridos for the first time on Tuesday.
Corridos are songs about historical events, politics, horse racing and imagination written by Hispanic composers. These songs are not always recorded.
Martinez spoke during "Nuevo Mexico, Hasta Cuando?" in the Willard Reading Room at Zimmerman Library.
His corrido is about two black berets who were shot and killed on a mesa in New Mexico in 1972 titled, "Corrido de Cordova y Canales."
"Corridos are part of the history of New Mexico," Martinez said. "A corrido is a way of presenting a situation or an incident in music, and I think that people as a whole will listen more when there is music attached to it."
Martinez is one of the featured corrido composers in the Smithsonian Institution Traveling exhibit, "Corridos sin Fronteras: A New World Ballad Tradition" at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. At Tuesday's lecture he gave a short speech about his writing process and the places he found inspiration for music. He said he cannot just sit down and write, he needs to be inspired by events.
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Organizer of the event and reference librarian for the Center for Southwest Research Teresa Marquez said she wanted to demonstrate the importance of corridos to a Southwest culture and attract people to the exhibit.
"It is a very important part of New Mexico culture and part of New Mexico tradition," Marquez said.
She said she organized the lecture because of the exhibit at the Hispanic Cultural Center and because UNM professor Enrique Lamadrid is teaching a course on corridos. The event, sponsored by the Center for Southwest Research and UNM University Libraries, was to honor Martinez for his work and to publicize the traveling Smithsonian exhibit.
Lamadrid, director of UNM's Chicano/a Studies Program, gave a short lecture about the history of corridos and was also the curator for the New Mexico exhibit. Lamadrid invited Martinez to participate in the event because he has been an important person in the world of corridos.
"In all of our key historical moments for the past 40 years, he's been there writing about them and singing about them," Lamadrid said.
One of Lamadrid's students said she had been learning about corridos and knew what they were, but said it was nice to hear them in person.
"I found the whole presentation interesting, because we're learning about this kind of stuff in Spanish class," UNM student Ebany Martinez said. "It puts a face to the book."
COMING ATTRACTION
"Corridos sin Fronteras: A New World Ballad Tradition"
National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 Fourth St. SW
Through Dec. 5
246-2261
