Flauta sin Fronteras Tours U.S.-Mexico Border with Support from the PCAH

Flauta sin Fronteras features Elena Durán, a flutist who has performed with many of the world's major orchestras. Her passion is to use music as a bridge between cultures and this new tour will follow the arc of the U.S.– Mexican border from Matamoros to El Paso. The tour is one of several such artist cultural exchanges over the last several years supported through the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in partnership with the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

World-renowned Mexican-American flutist Elena Durán is performing in towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, a tour supported through PCAH and its cultural partners.

Durán’s Flauta sin Fronteras tour aims to promote appreciation and greater understanding of Mexican and American music and culture on both sides of the border. Her concerts will feature the best of both American and Mexican music, including such composers as Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Bernstein and Ponce, Blas Galindo, España and Prado. Typical of this tour are the kinds of “encuentros” she conducted in Nuevo Laredo in April where she performed at a school for disabled children, a senior center and an orphanage.

“There are many people in the border region who need music and the arts, but who have little or no access to them in the normal course of their lives. While this is true for many people in both countries, the need is all the greater in this area because of the tensions which are inherent in the geographical situation and in the present political climate,” says Durán.

Chairman Adair Margo met Durán, tour manager Michael Emmerson and Duran’s accompanist Fausto Diaz in the Fall of 2006 during Duran’s earlier tour of the border region. After their meeting, Margo and the President’s Committee took steps to support this current tour by Durán.

Margo said of Duran’s artistry, “Through the beautiful, fragile sounds of her flute, Elena Duran shares melodies that have brought meaning to her bi-cultural life. Her greatest joy is in taking these songs to people along the U.S./Mexico border who need it most – the homeless, the elderly, the orphaned and the disenfranchised – and, in doing so, bringing meaning to their lives, too.”

Her own heritage as Mexican-American has helped shape Durán’s passion for the border and its mix of cultures. Durán’s distinguished career as a flautist has included studying with Jean Pierre Rampal, playing with Paul McCartney and Stephane Grappelli, and performing with major orchestras here and abroad.