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 Elena and Los Tres Gallos
Elena Duran is the best known "chicana" flautist, with a strong undertaking to unite and strengthen understanding between Mexico and the USA. Proud of both her Mexican and American nationalities, Elena has a place in both countries and participates actively in building relations between Mexican, American and chicano cultures.
 November sees the realisation of the production of Elena and Los Tres Gallos, which pays homage to three great stars of Mexican cinema: Pedro Infante, Jorge Negreto and Javier Solis. More specifically this is a musical-multimedia homage, where Elena performs fifteen hits from the most famous films of these three tenors, accompanied by the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra, with arrangements for flute and orchestra by Eugenio Toussaint, who will also act as director of the orchestra in this project. Eugenio Toussaint is one of the most important composers and arrangers in Mexico.
Pedro Infante, Jorge Negreto and Javier Solis are the three starts of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, whose images and musical repertoire are profoundly embedded in the Mexican, chicano and latin culture.
This project has been developed as a co-production between London Artists (an artists' management organisation, which has looked after Artur Rubinstein, Henryk Szeryng, Marta Agerich and James Galway among others) and various departments of the largest university in Mexico, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The following will be involved: TV-UNAM (Director: Ernesto Velasquez), the medium for expressing the cultural, artistic and scientific diversity and richness of the university environment; the Film Library of UNAM (Director: Ivan Trujillo), which has the largest cinematographic archive in the whole of Mexico; the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra (General Director: Sergio Vela), which is one of Mexico City's leading orchestras, with a long and distinguished history of performing in the Sala Nezahualcoyotl, which is where the recording of this concert will take place, oriented towards producing a very important television programme which will attract large audiences with latin roots in the USA and, of course, throughout America. Moreover, the Sala Nezahualcoyotl is without doubt the best location to bring about this production, since it is simply the best concert hall in Latin America.
The director and producer of this project will be the renowned director Rodolfo Ortega, very prominent in Mexican television. The visual part of the programme for television, as well as that for the DVD, will include scenes of the songs from each of the films, from recordings in the possession of the UNAM Film Library. The excerpts will also be projected when Elena gives live concerts of this nostalgic repertoire which reflects the soul of Mexico in the middle of the 20th century.
Elena and Los Tres Gallos will be launched on CD and DVD through an important American record label which will promote it heavily. In addition, Elena plans to give in the future other concerts of this cinematic homage to "Los Tres Gallos" accompanied by a pianist, in performances where, as well as playing the songs, she will tell anecdotes about going to the cinema as a child in California to see these films, thanks to the influence of her Mexican grandmother.
Generations of viewers in all the Spanish-speaking countries have grown up with the films of these three stars, identifying with them. This programme is very important for Mexican culture.
Elena Duran is a leading Mexican-American soloist with an international reputation. She has performed in Europe, the Middle East and American, playing and recording with many important orchestras and musical figures through the years. She has appeared regularly on television and has hosted her own radio programmes in England (Classic FM) and in Mexico (Estereo Mil FM).
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