Elena Durán is one of the most charismatic flute players on the international concert platform today. She was born and raised in East Oakland, California to parents who were both born in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She received her early musical education in the Oakland Schools system and after high school she studied at Mills College. At the age of only twenty she was appointed Lecturer in Flute at Stanford University.

After two years she resigned her post at Stanford to resume her studies in Europe with Jean Pierre Rampal, Alain Marion, Aurèle Nicolet and James Galway. She then spent the following years based in England, developing a concert career that has taken her all over Europe, the Far East, Australasia, and the Americas.

Elena has made concerto appearances and recordings with many major orchestras in the UK, USA, Europe and with virtually every orchestra in Mexico. She has played regularly for members of the British Royal Family including two Royal Galas with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London’s Royal Albert Hall in front of Her Majesty the Queen. She has also appeared frequently on television and radio in many countries and has had her own radio programmes in both Mexico and the UK.  She was also the founder and for twenty years  the artistic director of the Stratford-on-Avon International Flute Festival.

Elena has devoted herself to the cause of Mexican music and has found enormous success with her shows MEXICO DE MI CORAZÓN and AMORCITO CORAZÓN and is about to premier her new show ELLA Y EL REY devoted to the music of José Alfredo Jiménez.

She is also passionate about her outreach project FLAUTA SIN FRONTERAS. Read about this project here.

Read this 2003 article from The Chronicle in which Elena reflects on her childhood ambitions to become a flautist.