Keynote Speaker
Musical Pastiche, Nostalgia, and the Shaping of Latinx Identity in Popular Streaming Media
By Jacqueline Avila, Ph. D., University of Texas at Austin
This presentation examines the soundscapes and compositional techniques utilized by the EDM group the Mexican Institute of Sound (MIS) and its founder Camilo Lara in the 2021 album DF and in Netflix’s Latinx-focused dramady Gentefied (2020-21). The music created for both the album and the series feature musics of the past either sampled or referenced into a modern musical pastiche that evokes various forms of nostalgia. I argue that Lara’s music demonstrates an intimate connection between music, identity, and memory that has resonated with audiences in Mexico City and the growing Latinx community in the United States.
Jacqueline Avila is a musicologist who specializes in film music studies, sound studies, and the intersections of identity, tradition, and modernity in the musical cultures and new media of Mexico, Latin America, and the Latinx community in the United States. Her book, Cinesonidos:
Film Music and National Identity in Mexico’s Época de Oro was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press, Music and Media Series. Dr. Avila’s current projects focus on transnationalism, nostalgia, and cultural identity in Latinx film and streaming media and the musical cultures on the US-Mexico border.