“LADAMA takes on traditional genres with confidence and vigor without being constrained by their conventions. The result is a vivid montage of music of the Americas with irresistible spirit and universal appeal.”

— All Things Considered, NPR

LADAMA’s newsletter will send updates and news (and for a limited time a surprise)! Many things are happening in 2024 and we want you to be in the know! Meanwhile check out our full-length debut album, LADAMA, here and our 2020 album, Oye Mujer, here, and our newest single, De Aquí Me Voy, here.

LADAMA Interviewed on Latino USA

LADAMA Interviewed on NPR’s Alt.Latino

OUR ‘Tiny desk’ debut on npr! Click to watch

LADAMA’s TED talk at The TED2018 conference is now out! Watch it below.

live at womex 2019

NOWTHIS, NOWTHIS HER & NOWTHIS Español video

In the fall of 2014, members of LADAMA met at OneBeat (http://1beat.org/) -- an initiative of the U.S. State Department's  Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and curated by Found Sound Nation (http://foundsoundnation.org) -- a fellowship and residency where musicians from around the world can come together to focus on social engagement, sound production and composition in a collaboration-based setting. Initially conceived by Lara Klaus, Daniela Serna and Maria Gonzalez (LA-DA-MA) with the aim of working within countries in South America, LADAMA grew to include Sara Lucas in an effort to reach communities in North America as well. Out of this experience our project developed as a way to continue together as an active music ensemble that creates original work and socially engages communities on a global level.

In the spring of 2015, LADAMA received an AEIF (Alumni Exchange International Fund) grant to give public performances and hold residencies and workshops in our respective countries of Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. With the additional help of a Performing Americas grant and a partnership with Paco do Frevo, LADAMA was able to tour Recife, Bogotá, Barquisimeto and Guanare in February and March of 2016. In May, we traveled to Brooklyn, New York for a residency as part of Found Sound Nation's curated programming in partnership with National Sawdust (http://nationalsawdust.org) and El Puente. Thanks in part to support from the Augustine Foundation and the Brooklyn Arts council, we were also able to work with students at La Casita Comunal in Sunset Park.

Mafer Bandola

Mafer Bandola is a bandola llanera performer, self-thought composer, community organizer, and educator. With a grounded understanding of the bandola llanera (male-dominated) traditions, she focuses on bringing the instrument to a new artistic path through composition, performance, and improvisation.

As a teaching artist, she works for The Lullaby Project, an initiative Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. The program pairs parents and caregivers with professional artists to write and sing personal lullabies for their babies, supporting maternal health, aiding childhood development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child. She also works for the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance (ALJA), a performing and educational organization that aims to preserve the music of the Americas, emanating from African and indigenous roots, through the entry point of jazz.

Mafer created and hosts “Pipiris Nights,” the first recurring, community-focused series of Venezuelan Joropo music and dance in New York.

Her creative process with LADAMA brings sounds and compositions around the theme of resilient female voices through an intersectional approach. 

@maferbandola

Lara Klaus

Lara Klaus is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, educator and music therapist. Lara focused on mastering traditional percussion such as pandeiro, alfaia, zabumba and other world music instruments along with the rhythms of Northeast Brazil. She has played at festivals around the world including the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) and has performed and taught all-ages workshops throughout South America, Europe and the United States. Lara has been featured in ensembles with renowned Brazilian musicians including Luciano Magno, Elba Ramalho, Roberto Mescal and Moraes Moreira. She participates in the NGO Integrarte, where she works with musicians with Down syndrome, and for several years she was musical director of the Maracaarte percussion group. In March 2018 Lara released her debut solo album entitled "Força do Gesto", with music production by Tomaz Alves and Lara herself.

Daniela serna

Daniela Serna is a Colombian composer, percussionist, educator and sound artist. As both a performer and educator, she has spent the last ten years working with traditional Caribbean Colombian rhythms such as bullerengue, gaita, cumbia, porro and fandango music styles. Well versed in global rock and pop, her travels have taken her to Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Argentina. She is the founder of La Perla an all-female Caribbean folk band, recent winners of the XXXI Festival de Gaita larga Francisco Llirene in Ovejas, Sucre. In 2014 she presented “Bullerengue Covers,” a sound installation exploring the sonics of tambour alegre (hand drum) and surrounding space for which El Puente, her experimental duo with Uva Lunera, composed the music. In 2012 she won a Señal Radio Colombia contest to perform with legendary folk-singer bullerengue queen Petrona Martínez.

We want to thank all of the people who have supported our South and North American tours and activities in February- May of 2016. Without your financial backing we would not have been able to fully realize our project:

Mauricio Serna, Miria Oviedo Masset, Dahlak Braithwaite, Nikki Dillon, Gabriel Medina, Chuck Costello, Daniel de Mendoza, Amanda Gemmill, John Hicks, Reid Ramirez, Débora B. Alves, Joanie Taylor, Kevin Bay, Elizabeth Droste, Jose Erico Eloi Dantas, Santiago de Mendoza, Bonifacio de Oliveira, Loretta and Dennis De Santis, Laura Stein, Sandra Sitron, Anya Yurchyshyn, Marla LaMarca, Jonathan Chambers, Rory Ellinger, Sarah Alden, Quince, Barbara Heise, Leah Campbell, Matthew Schreiber, Jon Kardon, Art Middleton, Cassandra Burrows, Liz Carrero Rodriguez, Kyla Rose Smith, Bruno Guaraná, Sarah Bernstein, Braden Hassett, Jackie & Eddie D'Inzillo, Brynn Kusic, Natalia Silva, Jenn Wasner, Nan Leese, Sanaya Ardeshir, Chris Forsyth, Peter Kerlin, Hannah Devereux, Temijun Doran, Noah Blumensen-Cook, Todd Chandler, Mirah Zeitlyn, Sruly Lazaros, Rebekah Brown, Nicki Black, Rick Taylor, France Salia, Rosalyn Bodycomb, Hunter Bay, Douglas McQueen, Jennifer Nelson, Benjamin Mason, Milena, Marina Albuquerque, Brian and Dotti Ramey, Vanesa Albertos Ubierna, Anna Dunn, Hilary Ives, Nathalie Jordão, Michael Bourgeois, Rush & Stacy Simpson,  Max Carneiro da Cuhna, Kevin Visnaskas, Greg Quirk, Mike Anderson, Leslie Boden, Emily Geller, Don Godwin, Daniel Hawks, Matt Bauder, Bill McCord, Anna Roberts-Gevalt, Jerry Smolin, Gil Averneri, Carrie Reed, Julianna Barwick, Ben Berman, Jacqueline Farias, Sean LaRocca, Frederick Klass, Sharon Van Etten, Bob Coffey, Danny Mekonnen, Lee Eaton, Jane Virga, Jackie Zimmerman, Antônio de Hollanda, Kevin Bay Sr., New Orleans Coquelets, Derrick Belcham, Jason Schwartz, Dacus Thompson, Shawna Chaudhary, Ezra Tennenbaum, Tim Schmalz, Susan Sakash, Casey Coleman, Frieda Lim, K.C. Whitely, Nation Beat, Morley, Nate Powell, Isabelle Brabant, Quiana Myers-Vandrovec, Claudinho Santana, Lorraine Gnecco Legomsky, Andrea Franklin, Nancy Baglan, Michael Bennett, Emily Klass, Kuhn Laurent, Ryan Wilson, Anjali Munjali, Kevin McEvoy & Barbara Epstein, Luke Holladay, Hannah McKenzie-Marguiles, Elena Moon Park, Stan Rifken, Simone Baerenzten, Merica Moynihan, Nancy Mozier, Shelli Kastin, Becky Black, Karina Vahitova, Vivea McCutcheon, Craig Weinrib, Carla Rio, Newton Peres, Leonardo Salazar, Lucas Brandão, Fábio Pedrosa Barbosa, Gera Vieira, John Swecker, Emily Render, Ellen Bernard, Lauren Smith, Thomas Stephanos, Laughlin Siceloff, Cody Peterson, John Hale, Kathy Bay, Bonnie Tesson, Chris Eldridge, Molly Neuman, Neanna Lena Bodycomb, Laura DeFazio, Sara Moffat, Michael DeWolf, Alex Asher, Karen Grubb, Dave Muller, Goat in the Road Productions, Doug Crowell, Andrew Tarlow, Zopi Kristjanson, Kelly Mueller, Lawrence Ames, Michelle Brandone, Lara Ximenes, Kenneth Wiss, Katie Batchelder, Camilla Falconi Crispim, Allison Padilla-Goodman, Margaret Meyers, John Connolly, Jud Wellington, James Mulry, The Chapin Sisters, David Krouse, Pat Costello, Ryan Seaton, Amy Silverberg, Scott Willson, Lulu Wolf, Alicia Houk, Lauren Wilson, Julia Gillard, Beth Gill, Eva Salina Primack, Robert Witherow, Anna TerAvest, Alain De Beaufort, Luke Kummer, Danielle Amir Jackson, Sally Mara Sturman, Hillery Sklar, Natalia Díaz, Orville Lee, Julia Lucas, Brian Taylor, Courtney Simon De Monforrt, Johanna Bock, Willem, Maya Nayak, George Langford, Marcy Costello-Barnes, Greg Probst, Carol Ramm Gramenz, Richard Henry Blair, Sheryl Peterson, Aristóteles Camara, Marcal Pedrosa, Vancleide Jordao, Johanna Divine & Denise Gallagher, Gideon Crevoshay, Stephanie Villani, Curt Sydnor, Gloria Diaz, Thiago Lobo, Ricardo Cavalcanti, Guilherme Freire, Maria Eduarda C. Pena, Aaron Hodges & Sarah Pickle, Michael Levinson & Nicole Tesson, Julius Lang, Siena Oristaglio, Ananda Plunkett, Erin Clancy, TD Sidell, Christie Burns, Nathan Koci, and MaryAnn & Bruce Lucas.