UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Mexican-American balladeer Lila Downs, kicking off the 2017-18 season at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27, at The Granada Theatre. Down’s performance will set the stage for a season of more than 65 events.
To celebrate opening night, audience members are invited to gather in front of the Granada an hour before the performance for live music and dance from Chinelos of Santa Bárbara and Southern California, plus Oaxaca-inspired drink specials next door at The Good Lion.
“Downs knows how to set off a party,” reports the Huffington Post. “Her exuberant songs as well as her darker-toned ones grab you by the gut: all are intensely felt wake-up calls to life.”
A Mexican-American music superstar, Downs is known for her opera-trained, “almost superhuman three-octave range,” says The Guardian, U.K., and her synthesis of indigenous Mesoamerican music with cumbia, soul, jazz and hip hop.
Over the course of nearly a dozen albums, Downs has earned a Grammy Award and multiple Latin Grammys as she and her band create a cross-cultural expression. Downs’ newest album is Salón, Lágrimas y Deseo. Her independently released debut Ofrenda came out in 1994.
Downs is the daughter of a Mixtec Indian woman, who ran away from her village at age 15 to sing in Mexico City cantinas, and a University of Minnesota professor, who saw her singing and fell in love.
Downs grew up both in Minnesota and Oaxaca, and was able to move freely between both countries and cultures, exploring her passion for music at an early age.
Downs weaves various musical forms with traditional Mexican and native Mesoamerican music, singing in Spanish, English and the languages of the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya and Nahuatl cultures, creating a fusion of international sounds and musical genres.
Many of her lyrics focus on issues relating to social justice, and often tell the stories of the workers who migrate from rural Mexico to work in the U.S. Downs studied classical voice and cultural anthropology at the University of Minnesota. She is currently based in Oaxaca.
Favoring a stunning wardrobe based on the textiles of Mexico’s indigenous cultures, Downs has performed at such prestigious festivals and venues as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Festival of Sacred Music – Hollywood Bowl.
She has been invited to sing at the White House and performed on the 75th Annual Academy Awards and the 2012 Latin Grammy Awards televised ceremonies. To learn more about Downs, visit her website http://www.liladowns.com/?lang=en.
Tickets to Downs’ performance at the Granada are $25-$60 for the general public, $15 for all students with valid student ID. A Granada facility fee will be added to each ticket price.
For tickets and information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures, 893-3535 or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu, or contact The Granada Theatre, 899-2222 or orgranadasb.org.
— Caitlin O’Hara for UCSB Arts & Lectures.