Olga Chorens Menéndez

Cuban singer with performances in Cuba during the forties and fifties. Together with Tony Álvarez she formed the duo Olga y Tony, which for years captivated the Cuban public and the child population with their interpretations of tangos, waltzes and songs.

She began singing at the age of 11 years old in children's programs on Radio García Serra.

Later she performed at the Supreme Court of Art, winning numerous competitions until she was able to compete among adults, becoming a Rising Star.

At 12 years old she listened on Cuban radio to the program Ritmos del Plata, hosted by Tony Álvarez. The then model and radio announcer presented tangos during the broadcast.

She met Tony when both became part of the Río La plata orchestra. They married on May 6, 1945 and three months later, they went on a five-year tour that took them throughout Latin America, from Panama City to Buenos Aires (Argentina).

From that marriage two daughters were born, the singer Lissete Álvarez, who is married to the also singer Willy Chirino, and Olga Álvarez, current presenter of the news program on Channel 47, in New York.

They were part of the theater companies of Spanish singer Estrellita Castro and Cuban Blanquita Amaro. During this tour they increased their repertoire, which included tangos, Peruvian waltzes and numerous compositions from the romantic and typical Latin American songbook.

The tour culminated in Buenos Aires, where Olga graced important stages such as the Tabaris and the Tronío, while Tony performed Cuban rhythms such as Galán de la Guaracha, it is here where she met the Argentine singer she admired as an idol, Libertad Lamarque.

Return to Cuba

Upon returning to Havana in 1950, they officially became the duo, Olga y Tony, performing on Ronda Musical Coca Cola, a live radio program that was broadcast on Radio Progreso from Monday to Friday from 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm for more than seven years.

Once a week, on Sundays they held Caravana Musical, a live radio program with the Symphonic Orchestra conducted by Maestro Enrique González Mántici.

In 1951, Chorens co-starred with her husband, Tony Álvarez, in the show of the CMQ television station in Cuba known as El show de Olga y Tony, which was a program that was broadcast live with an orchestra composed of very renowned artists who participated with them in the show. All the guests always sang live and with the accompaniment of a choir whenever necessary. Tony and Olga also sang several songs during the program's broadcast.

The CMQ Circuit program, El Show de Olga y Tony; was a daily live program where they brought together about 200 people in the studio, who attended to watch the couple perform the varied repertoire, accompanied by an orchestra of stars made up of, among others, Israel Cachao López Rolando Laserie and Laíto Castro.

Chorens also participated in several films, for example, in Romance Musical with actors Otto Sirgo and Enriqueta Sierra.

Olga and Tony were honored and awarded with the title of Miss and Mister Television in the 1950s in Cuba.

With the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, the couple went into exile in 1963 and lived in Mexico City and later in Miami and New York (United States), San Juan (Puerto Rico) and Madrid (Spain).

In the United States, where they were contracted by New York entrepreneurs, a city where they sang in important venues of the time such as Teatro San Juan, Hotel Great Northern, the Alameda Room and the Liborio, performing songs in English, pleasing the local public and Latin American tourists.

The successful trajectory in Cuba and the numerous admirers they had conquered in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico led television producer Paquito Cordero to offer them a contract for Channel 2, Telemundo in Puerto Rico.

In January 1965 they debuted in the Show de las Doce, a daily program of an hour and a half divided into segments shared with luminaries such as Gran Combo, Chucho Avellanet, Luís Echegoyen and Eddie Miro.

After almost 15 years of successes on the small screen in Puerto Rico, with the program on Channel 7 and later on Channel 11, with Cita con Las Estrellas, they moved to Spain where they worked for a year, returning to Miami to resume television broadcasts on Channel 51.

Songs

Among the best-known songs are, Linda Caleñita, Mis noches sin ti, Margarita, el Cha cha cha del tren, Volverán las golondrinas, Si te pica el alacrán, Canción de los domingos, Ilusión and Te adoraré. They recorded an album with the Sonora matancera orchestra, named Presentando a Olga Chorens y Tony Álvarez from the Tropical Records label.

Other songs are, Cuando tú te hayas Ido, Por que volver, Oración en el camino, Porque no volverás, Concierto divino, España madre querida, Mil congojas, Déjame, Padam padam, Regalo de viaje.

Awards, trophies, recognition

1955 - Named "Miss and Mister Television" in their native country Cuba, they were awarded with large trophies.
1999 - Olga and Tony received a star on the "Walk of Fame" on Calle Ocho in Miami, Fl.
2008 - On October 24, their followers were given the opportunity to name the 35 southwest avenue, between streets 7 and 8, with the name of "Avenida Olga y Tony" in Miami, Fl.