Lila Downs

About This Event

Lila Downs blends indigenous Oaxacan tradition with jazz, cumbia, and boleros into something that doesn't sound quite like anyone else working today — a genuinely global-caliber booking for Symphony Center's non-classical side.

She was born in Tlaxiaco, in the mountains of southern Mexico's Oaxaca state, to a Mixtec cabaret singer and a Scottish-American art professor from Minnesota — a mixed heritage she's built her whole artistic identity around rather than picking one side of it. She started singing traditional Mexican rancheras with mariachi bands at age eight, and later studied both music and anthropology at the University of Minnesota, eventually becoming known internationally partly through her work voicing the soundtrack to the 2002 Frida Kahlo biopic. She's since won a Grammy and three Latin Grammys.

Worth knowing: showtime is 7:00 PM, and tickets start at $47 — check available seating on vividseats.com or Symphony Center's own site.