Mexico’s Silvana Estrada brings her eclectic influences to the Chan Centre on October 4
The singer-songwriter and Latin Grammy winner has collaborated with artists from all over the world, and she will perform with Vancouver’s own Black Dog String Quartet
Silvana Estrada. Photo by Jesus Soto Fuentes
Silvana Estrada plays the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on a revised date of October 4 at 7:30 pm
IT WOULD BE hard to imagine higher praise: Dazed once described Silvana Estrada as “the Gen Z, Latin American answer to Joni Mitchell”. While that might be an impossibly high bar, the Mexican singer-songwriter has, at 29, already firmly established herself as one to watch. Estrada picked up the best new artist award at the 2022 Latin Grammys on the strength of Marchita, her debut album.
To clarify, Marchita was Estrada’s solo debut, but it came after two earlier albums she made in collaboration with American jazz fusionist and guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter. That should tell you a bit about Estrada’s tastes, as she has cited jazz legends Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan as formative influences.
Her own music is centred on her warm, fluid vocals, imagistic but emotionally compelling Spanish-language lyrics, and delicately fingerpicked nylon-string guitar, which she sometimes swaps out for a Venezuelan cuatro. It could probably be summed up most succinctly as Latin American folk with an indie-pop sensibility.
In addition to Hunter, Estrada has collaborated with a number of different artists from all over the world, including Mexico’s Natalia Lafourcade, Spain’s Guitarricadelafuente, Iceland’s Laufey, and Smithers, B.C.–based Alex Cuba. For her Chan Centre concert, she will perform with Vancouver’s Black Dog String Quartet.
Estrada doesn’t truly sound anything like Mitchell, but let’s just say that fans of Ladies of the Canyon and Blue will probably find plenty to love anyway. 
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