Russell C Rodriguez

User Russell C Rodriguez

User Assistant Professor

User831-459-3117

User rucrodri@ucsc.edu

Arts Division

Assistant Professor

Faculty

RUSSELL

Music Center
Music Center 285

1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA 95064

Music Center

Rodríguez began his education at home and in his community learning, Mexican folk, dance, and music. In 1974 he began his first music apprenticeship with Artemio Posadas learning son huasteco and son jarocho. By the age of 18 he was working full-time as a mariachi music in the South Bay Area. During the 1980s and 90s Rodríguez was also sought after to perform and do workshops at folk festivals in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In 1992, he returned to his studies, transferring into Santa Clara University and receiving a BS in anthropology. After playing a stint in Puerto Rico, Rodríguez was accepted into the Latin American Studies program at Stanford University where he worked with Renato Rosaldo and received a Master of Arts. In 1998 he began his doctoral studies at UC Santa Cruz, completing his dissertation under the guidance of Dr. Olga Nájera-Ramírez. In 2007 Rodríguez became a UC Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow, which provided an opportunity for him to work with George Lipsitz at UC Santa Barbara. Prior to joining the Music Department at UCSC, Rodríguez worked in the public sector with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts as a program manager, working closely to communities of color, immigrants, refugees closely engaged in cultural and traditional practices.

My research interests include Mexican folk music, Chicano music, mariachi, son jarocho, cultural production, communal music practice, convivencia (convivial interaction), accompaniment, participatory performance, performance

·         2023 The American Folklore Society Américo Paredes Prize.

·         2020 The University of California, Santa Cruz: Academic Senate Excellence in Teaching Award.

·         2007 The University of California President Postdoctoral Fellowship, Mentor George Lipsitz at University of California, Santa Barbara.

·         2005 American Anthropology Association Minority Dissertation Fellowship.

·         2005 University of California, Santa Cruz President Dissertation Fellowship.

·         2002 The University of California Consortium on Mexico and the United States, UC-MEXUS Dissertation Research Grant. 

·         1999 University of California, Santa Cruz Anthropology Travel Award.

·         1999 University of California, Santa Cruz Chicano Latino Research Center Summer Award.

·         1998 University of California, Santa Cruz Cota-Robles Fellowship.

 

·         1979 National Endowment for the Arts - Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant to study son jarocho with master musician Artemio Posadas.

2025     “Ay, ay, ay, ay, Canta Y No Compones: Mariachi Performance and Composition.” A public lecture for The Southwest Center and Fronteridades at Arizona University March 27, 2025.

2024     “Ay, ay, ay, ay, Canta Y No Compones: Mariachi Performance and Composition.” Phillips Barry Lecture for the American Folklore Society, Sponsored by the Music and Song Section, November 8, 2024.

2023     “From Colonialsim to Conviviality: Mariachi Transmission and Performance,” delivered at the American Folklore Society (AFS) annual meeting, Portland, Oregon, (November).

2022     “Fandango y Convivencia: A Participatory Engagement in Music Making,” delivered at the World Languages and Cultures’ Festival of Languages, Culture, and Ideas at Cal State Monterey Bay (March 17).

2021     “Taloneando: Mariachi Apprenticeship in the Rise of Institutional Pedagogy,” delivered (virtual) for the American Folklore Society (AFS) annual meeting (October).

2019     “The Mexican Mariachi: Integrating the Popular into Ritual?,” delivered at the Society of Ethnomusicology (SEM) annual meeting, Bloomington, Indiana (November).

2016     “Tradiciones: Smithsonian Folkways and the Music of Greater Mexico.” Roundtable delivered at the Society ofEthnomusicology (SEM) annual meeting, Washington, DC, (November).

2014     “Daniel Sheehy: Resonando la canción de un valiente.” Roundtable Sponsored by the Chicana/o Section and the Folklore Latino, Latinoamericano, y Caribeño Section delivered at the annual meeting of the American Folklore Society, Santa Fe, New Mexico (November).

2013     “Mariachi UCLAtlán and the legacy of Jesus ‘Don Chuy’ Sanchez: A Hidden Transcript,” delivered for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Mariachi UCLAtlán at the Institute of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles (May).

2012     “The Mariachi Art World: Illuminating Hidden Aspects from Below,” delivered at the American Anthropological Association (AAA), San Francisco, California (November).

2011     “Conviviendo en el son: Transnational Dialogues and Exchanges,” delivered at the American Studies Association (ASA), Baltimore, Maryland (October).

2011     “Transnational Dialogues and Exchanges: Conviviendo en el Son,” delivered as part of the Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series, University of California, Los Angeles, (February 16).

2009     “Is That Mariachi Singing in English?: Significant Contributions by Chicana/os to Mariachi Music,” delivered at the Society of Ethnomusicology (SEM) annual meeting, Mexico City, D.F., Mexico (November).

2009     “El Son Jarocho en California,” developed for the Galería de la Raza, Taller: Encuentro: Fandango Program, San Francisco, June 13.

2008     “Fandangueando con Jarocha/os y Chicana/os: Transnational Cultural Production,” chaired and delivered for an invited session Performance, Memory, and Production in Transnational Expressive Culture, sponsored by the Association for Latina and Latino Anthropologists, at the American Anthropological Association (AAA), annual meeting, San Francisco, California (November).

2008     “Mariachi Sound and Sentimiento: Discourse from Below,” invited presentation for the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, (May 21).

2008     “Ballet Folklorico in the United States: Tradition and Disillusion,” delivered at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS), Austin, Texas (April).

2007     “Musical Tagging: Cultural Indexing in Hybrid Musical Forms,” delivered at the American Anthropological Association(AAA), San José, California (November).

2007 “Multicultural Sounding or Sonoric Stereotyping?,” delivered at the annual National Association for Chicana and ChicanoStudies (NACCS), San José, California (April).

2007     “Transnational Dialogues: Intercambios Jarocha/os y Chicana/os,” a position paper for a roundtable discussion (Tradition and Innovation of the Son in California: A View from the Stage), delivered at The Mexican Son: Ethnic Roots and Transborder Communities conference, University of California, Riverside (February).

2006     “For the Love or the Money: Ideological Approaches to Mariachi Music,” delivered at the American Anthropological Association (AAA), San José, California (November).

2006     “Sound y sentimiento: reclamando autoridad en la practica del mariachi,” delivered in Spanish at the annual NationalAssociation for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) as part of the Transnational Mexicanidades: Performance, Dialogue, and Representation panel, Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico (June).

2006     “Transnational Dialogues: Intercambios Jarocha/os y Chicana/os,” delivered at the annual meeting for the Latin AmericanStudies Association (LASA), as part of the Transnational Popular Cultures in the Americas panel, San Juan, Puerto Rico, (March).

2005     Panelist for the second seminar in the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage series Cultural Heritage: Theory in Policy and Practice “Performing Cultural Heritage” (June).

2004     “Sound and Sentimiento: Claiming Authority Within the Practice of Mariachi Music,” delivered at the annual meeting for theSociety of Ethnomusicology (SEM), Tucson, Arizona, (November).

2004     “Transnational Dialogues: Son Jarocho, A Veracruz-California Connection,” delivered at the Chicano Music Symposium,University of California, Los Angeles, April.

2003     “Ballet Folklórico: A United States Tradition,” delivered at the American Folklore Society (AFS) annual meeting, Albuquerque, New Mexico, (October).

2001     “The Son Mexicano,” lecture presentation with Dr. Daniel Sheehy, at the Casa Mexicano (Mexican Embassy), Washington, DC, (August).

2000     “The East LA Groove: A Dialogue Towards a Multiethnic Identity?” delivered at the American Anthropological Association (AAA), San Francisco, CA, (November).

2000     “The East LA Music Scene: Summer Grant Report,” delivered at the Chicano, Latino Research Center Colloquium Series,University of California, Santa Cruz, (April).

1997     “Echando La Polilla: Politics and Authority of Contemporary Mariachi Musicians,” delivered at The Making and Remaking of Mexico conference at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, (November).

1997     “The Poetics and Politics of the Contemporary Mariachi,” delivered at the Rhythms of Culture: Dancing To Las Americas conference on Latin American music, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, (March).

1996     “Mariachi: Music of the Marginalized,” delivered for Ethnic Studies Program and Anthropology/Sociology Department conjunction lecture series, at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, (March).

1995     “A Historical View of Chicano Movement Music,” delivered at the annual meeting of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS), Spokane, Washington, (March).

2023    “Mariachi Accompaniment: Cultural Bearers for Communal Conviviality.” Twentieth-Century Music. Published online 2023:1-29. doi:10.1017/S1478572223000038. Journal publication Twentieth-Century Music. Vol. 21, Issue 2, June 2024, pp. 180-208.

2015    “Mariachi,” in Iconic Mexico: An Encyclopedia from Acapulco to Zócalo. Ed. Eric Zolov. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Greenwood.

2012    with George Lipsitz “Turning Hegemony On its Head: The Insurgent Knowledge of Américo Paredes.” Journal of American Folklore. Special edition dedicated to the work of Américo Paredes. Ed. John McDowell. Vol. 125, No. 495 (Winter), pp. 111-125. Published By: University of Illinois Press.

2012    “Chicano Music,” in the The Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Volume 8-Genres: Northe America. Eds. John Shepherd and David Horn. London and New York: Continuum.

2011    “La Causa Cantada: Singing to the Movement.” Grant Makers in the Art: GIA Reader. Vol. 22, No. 3, pg. 34-35.

2010    “Review” of Sounds of the Nation: Music, Culture, and Ideas in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, by Alejandro L. Madrid, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Volume 22, Issue 1, Pages 119–122.

2010    “Politics of Aesthetics: Mariachi Music in the United States.” Inside the Latin@ Experience: A Latino Studies Anthology. Ed. NormaCantú and Maria Fránquiz. New York: Palgrave.

2009    “Folklórico in the United States: Cultural Preservation and Disillusion,” in Dancing Across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos. Ed. Olga Nájera-Ramírez, Norma Cantu, and Brenda Romero, Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

2005    “Mariachi Music,” in Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Ed. by Deena Gonzáles and Suzanne Oboler, New York: Oxford Press. 

2025    Rasquache Liberation Front, self-titled debut recording led by Chris Gonzalez Clarke and produced by Los Lobos Steve Berlin, is a dispatch of original psychedelic cumbiasjarocho blues, lowrider folk, and cuentos. Original songs, with English and Spanish lyrics, explore stories of migration, family and identity. Collectively, the RLF creates a trippy and original stew of Chicano music to raise spirits and liberate audiences," (as stated on the website). I contributed to the recording project as a co-composer, arranger, and musician and I am currently a member of this ensemble.

2020    MacarioProduced recording of the original music composed for the theatrical version of B. Traven’s novella Macario that I developed in 2013. Co-Produced by Teatro Vision.

2018    La Departera. Composed, arranged, and recorded original music for a new theatrical play written by Evelina Fernández. Produced by Teatro Visión in San José, California; supported by the Creative Works Fund.

2016    El CaminoAndres Flores y Los Hijos de José. Worked on this recording as a composer, arranger, musician, and engineer. Produced by Greg Landau. Round Whirled Records.

2010    The Storm that Swept Mexico. Contributed original compositions and recorded various traditional selections aspart of the score. Producer Ray Telles, Musical Director Pete Sears, Produced by Paradigm Productions and Independent Television Service.

2010    Danza Folklórica Escénica: El Sello Artístico de Rafael Zamarripa. Associate producer, musical director, andcomposer of original selections. Produced by Olga Nájera-Ramírez.

2005    They Shoot Mexicans, Don’t They? Contributed as a composer, arranger, musician, and co-producer as a member of the Ghetto Fivetet. Los Angeles: About Productions.

2002    Raices Latinas: Smithsonian Folkways Latino Roots Collection. Associate Producer. Washington DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

1999    Radio Chón. Premier release for Chicano ensemble Los Otros. Composer, arranger, and musician. San Francisco: Son del Barrio Music.

Last modified: Sep 18, 2025