Summer Concert Series

BIOGRAPHY:
Winner of six Latin Grammys and one Grammy, celebrated singer Lila Downs is one of the most powerful and unique voices that exist today. With a symbolic stage presence and emotional storytelling through song, her singing transcends all language barriers.

Born and raised in both Oaxaca and Minnesota, Lila Downs is the daughter of a Mixtec Indigenous woman and Anglo-American father. She has written narratives of Indigenous resistance protecting the original vision of the sacred plants and food of her Oaxacan culture while keeping the traditions of the American continent.  A passionate human rights activist, Lila Downs’s lyrics often focus on stories ranging from social injustice to the suppressed Latin American stories of women of indigenous and working-class origins.

Lila Downs’s music embraces influences from the folkloric and ranchera music of Mexico to the music of the southern United States, crossing barriers and generating sounds that go from Folk, Jazz, Folkloric Blues, Indigena, and ranchera to Hip Hop.