Andy Langer and Carrie Rodriguez Are Now UT Employees

Carrie Rodriguez (Courtesy of Carrie Rodriguez)

UT-Austin has nabbed some impressive new foot soldiers for its ongoing effort to expand campus-area live music experiences. Journalist Andy Langer and award-winning singer-violinist Carrie Rodriguez are now part of the Longhorn Live: Live Music Initiative, the university announced this week.

Langer, a Texas Monthly, Esquire, KGSR (formerly Austin City Limits Radio), and Chronicle alum, joins UT in a new role known as senior director of live music and entertainment. According to a press release, the senior director acts as a liaison for all campus live music and entertainment events, helps connect the university with the greater Austin music community, and elevates student talent.

In his own social media statement, Langer outlined the work he’s already done for UT’s musical outreach. “After a year of working part-time at UT – where I managed the president’s Songwriter in Residence program, our piece of the CMT Awards, a CBS Morning shown [sic] on campus with Jelly Roll and Gayle King, and helped produce a slate of shows with folks from Diplo to Pitbull – I’m now thrilled to say this is my full-time gig,” he wrote Wednesday, adding that the day before, he welcomed André 3000 to the Butler School of Music to do a “fireside chat with our 18 flute majors.”

Andy Langer at the Austin Music Awards in 2011 (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Langer continues to manage the Songwriter in Residence program, which provides a selected musician with a nine-month stipend to lead workshops, discussion panels, and concerts at the university. New appointee Rodriguez succeeds Darden Smith in the program, which culminates in January with the premiere of an original work. That piece, “Postcards From the Border,” will be narrated by novelist and UT faculty member Oscar Cásares and feature images by photographer Joel Salcido alongside music by Rodriguez and her band. Smith will continue to offer workshops, classroom visits, and live performances in an emeritus capacity, the university said.

“Postcards From the Border” runs Jan. 24-25 at Texas Performing Arts’ McCullough Theatre. Before then, THEBROSFRESH, Y’all Out Boy, and Fitz and the Tantrums play the latest edition of the free live music series Longhorn City Limits, Sept. 28 on the LBJ Lawn.