Agustín Lira and Patricia Wells. (Program Repeat)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6
PROGRAM #11010 11:00 AM PT

Agustín Lira and Patricia Wells. (Program Repeat). 

A conversation with renowned singers and cultural activists Agustín Lira and Patricia Wells, who headlined the recent Canciones del San Joaquín concert in Fresno. Lira co-founded El Teatro Campesino in 1965 alongside Luis Valdez. As part of this groundbreaking musical and theatrical ensemble, Lira composed some of the most iconic songs of the farmworker movement. In 2007, he was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the U.S. Together with Lira, Patricia Wells was a member of Teatro de la Tierra and co-founded Alma, a group dedicated to preserving and reimagining musical traditions rooted in Mexican, Chicano, Indigenous, and working-class histories of California’s Central Valley. Together, they produced the album Songs of Hope and Struggle under the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label. At the recent concert, supported by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and co-produced by Radio Bilingüe, they premiered the song The Cage. This edition, originally aired on July 31, 2025, is part of the series “Thirty Years, Thirty Voices.”

Guests: Agustín Lira, pioneering singer-songwriter of the new Chicano song movement, Fresno, CA; Patricia Wells, singer, artist, and cultural activist, Fresno, CA.

Photo: Agustin Lira & Patricia Wells/Facebook

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