Flame – Ellena’s melting pot

aturing songs from her new album and cover versions of some classic favourites from across the years.
Starting out like every other young singer, Ellena has sung with many of Zimbabwe’s top talents, including a stint with well known Harare rock/blues outfit ‘KweKwe’, with whom she performed and recorded. She later formed the group ‘Melting Pot’ and recorded and released her album ‘Hufananyina’ in 2006, featuring songs written and co-produced by herself.
One of the songs from the album, ‘Mbudzi’, has received a lot of airtime on local radio and the video shown numerous times on ZTV to rave reviews.
Ellena’s influences are many and varied, and her music reflects her rich and colourful cultural background – Zimbabwean, Yugoslav and South African – a melting pot indeed!
Ellena personifies the new breed of female musician in Zimbabwe today – talented, sussed, strong, independent, highly organised and professional. In October 2006, along with 10 other top female artists, Ellena participated in ‘Divas Deliberate’ a FLAME workshop for women artists which addressed issues of music copyrights, the role of the NAC, management, publicity and insights into the music recording industry.
The FLAME programme – which is being run by local arts organization Pamberi Trust and supported by the Dutch agency HIVOS – has already conducted two workshops and presented several music events featuring various female artists since October 2006. The programme is ongoing, and hopes to reach many more female artists in the year ahead. – By Penny Yon For Pamberi Trust