Music Video - Los Hermanos

Los Hermanos is a powerful music video edited by filmmaker Maureen Gosling. The video pairs a Los Cenzontles cover version of Argentine composer Atahualpa Yupanqui's haunting song "Los Hermanos" with photos by the celebrated photographer Jim Goldberg.

Director Biography - Eugene Rodriguez

Eugene Rodriguez is a third generation Mexican American who grew up with both English language popular music and Mexican mariachi music in his family in Southern California. He has spent much of his career navigating and reconciling cultural divides by examining the deeper nuances of identity, belonging and tradition in contemporary society. He has played a pioneering role in raising awareness and value for participatory Mexican folk music in California and has innovated adaptations of traditional pedagogy to suit contemporary urban contexts.
Eugene received a Master's degree in Classical Guitar performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1987 where the study of social context in Baroque performance practice provided important insights that he would later use with his pedagogical adaptations. In 1989 he formed youth group Los Cenzontles through an Artist Residency from the California Arts Council. In 1991, with support from the U.S. Mexico Fund for Culture, he established the binational Fandango Project with Mexican Artist Gilberto Gutierrez to reconnect folklore practice in California to a social context. He incorporated Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center in 1994 to broaden his work and as a cultural response to urgent social problems in the community exacerbated by unprecedented demographic shift due to immigration.
In 1995 Eugene was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Album for Children for his production of Papa's Dream, a bilingual recording with Los Lobos and Lalo Guerrero. Around that time he released the acclaimed Se Acaba el Mundo son Jarocho fusion album with Mono Blanco and Stonelips. He has produced 30 CD’s for Los Cenzontles, many of which feature the collaborations he has initiated with Mexican folk artists that include Julian Gonzalez Saldaña, traditional mariachi; Atilano Lopez Patricio, traditional Indigenous P’urepecha music of Michoacan; and Mexican American conjunto musicians Flaco Jimenez, Santiago Jimenez, Jr. and Los Texmaniacs. Additionally he has worked with numerous Mexican American and Mexican folk masters such as Natividad Cano of Mariachi Los Camperos and Chicano legend Lalo Guerrero.
Eugene has collaborated with celebrated musicians in the creation of music that creates connections across cultural traditions. These cross-cultural collaborators have included Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne (with whom Eugene composed the song The Dreamer for DACA youth), Ry Cooder, David Hidalgo, Los Lobos, Taj Mahal, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band, among others. Eugene, and his students, also appeared on San Patricio, the Irish Mexican CD project of The Chieftains.
With his students Los Cenzontles Eugene has performed nationwide and internationally, including a 2019 tour with 22 members of Los Cenzontles, ages 8 to adult, to Sonora, Mexico accompanying Linda Ronstadt to the pueblo of her grandfather; a 2016 tour of Cuba – the subject of Eugene’s production of Conexiones, A Cuban Mexican Connection documentary currently distributed to PBS stations nationwide by the National Educational Telecommunications Association NETA; performances in Ireland and Scotland with The Chieftains and Ry Cooder; and a tour of the Dominican Republic organized by the U.S. State Department. Los Cenzontles was a featured performer at the Bienvenido Gustavo extravaganza at the Hollywood Bowl to welcome Los Angeles Philharmonic Conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Additionally they have performed in performing arts centers around the country including Royce Hall, UCLA; Rialto Center for the Arts, Atlanta; Town Hall, Seattle; Los Angeles Music Center; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley; Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA; Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, San Francisco; Great American Music Hall, San Francisco; Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts; Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; SF Jazz Center, San Francisco; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles; and, the Performing Arts Center at the University of Chicago. This year they performed at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
Eugene’s documentary productions have captured the messages and mission of his life’s work. In addition to Conexiones, A Cuban Mexican Connection, he produced Pasajero, A Journey of Time and Memory in 2003 which was distributed nationally to PBS stations by Latino Public Broadcasting, Fandango, Searching for the White Monkey, and Vivir (To Live) describing the educational challenges faced in immigrant communities and the power of culture.
Rodriguez has received numerous recognition and awards that include the 2017 Fanfare Award from his alma mater the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; the Playmaker Award from the 50 Fund Super Bowl Host Committee in 2016; a United Artists Award in 2012; the Local Hero Award from KQED television in 2010; the 2009 Community Leadership Award from the San Francisco Foundation; the 2009 Business Leadership Award from the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; the 2002 California Arts Council Director’s Award; the Contra Costa County Arts Commission Arts Recognition Award; and, three awards from the U.S. Mexico Fund for Culture. He has also received a Fellowship from the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His work with Los Cenzontles has been featured in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the California Watch, NPR, and in numerous music industry publications.
Eugene has served as a nominator for the Creative Work Fund for traditional artists and as a panelist for the Ford Foundation’s Learning Meeting of Media, Arts & Culture (MAC) and Transnational Economic Justice Initiative (TEJI); the Ford Foundation's Arts International; the II Forum on The Cultural Dimension of Transnational Communities, Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico; the Latinization of America conference at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California; the Immigrant and Refugee Artists in the SF Bay Area for the Northern California Grantmakers; the Regional Dance Development Initiative in San Francisco; the Support Systems for Immigrant and Refugee Arts Conference for the Fund for Folk Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the California Arts Council Touring Roster; and the L.A. Folk Arts Commission. He gave the keynote address with Linda Ronstadt and David Hidalgo at the Grantmakers in the Arts national conference in 2011. He has served as a member of the Contra Costa County Blue Ribbon Arts and Culture Planning Committee; the Arts Learning Initiative for the Alameda County Office of Education; and, the Latin American Initiative for Cal Performances at UC Berkeley.