Elias Breeskin - in Mexico

In Mexico

In the 1940s he moved to Mexico and became an exclusive artist of the XEB Radio station in Mexico City, the oldest in the country composed scores for the Cinema of Mexico including the Cantinflas film Neither blood nor sand. He had a daughter there who became a famous entertainer and violinist herself, Olga Breeskin.

In 1941, Anna, Gene, and John Breeskin joined Elias in Mexico City, where he had become musical director for XEW, the most important radio station in the country. John Breeskin describes one Christmas sitting in box seat in the principal orchestra hall in Mexico City near the President of Mexico, and watching his father Elias take the stage, lift his baton, and give the downbeat for Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. John Breeskin also describes living in a mansion with several servants, including a chauffeur, a gardener, a bodyguard, a cook and two young maids. Elias would come home from work, take off his suit jacket, and reveal a tiny Capuchin monkey tucked into his armpit. He would come home from the mercado with a parrot with violently colored feathers perched on his shoulder; this was typical.