Natalia Lafourcade, a 12-time Grammy Award-winner, set for Escondido return

The Mexican singer-songwriter, who headlines the nearly 18,000-capacity Hollywood Bowl on July 21, will first play a more intimate concert at California Center for the Arts, Escondido, on July 18.

San Diego Union-Tribune

July 16, 2019 3:22 PM PT

Natalia Lafourcade, “emerging Latin artist?”

That’s how she is identified on the website for California Center for the Arts, Escondido, where she performs Thursday.

Never mind that Lafourcade released her first album 17 years ago, has a Grammy Award and 11 Latin Grammy Awards to her credit, and headlines Sunday at the nearly 18,000-capacity Hollywood Bowl, where she’ll be accompanied by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Lafourcade’s Escondido concert on the center’s Great Green lawn will provide a welcome opportunity to hear her in an intimate setting.

An enduring star in much of the Spanish-speaking world, the Mexican-born singer and songwriter has focused on her Latin-music roots for the past six years with consistently enchanting results.

Natalia Lafourcade: 8 p.m. Thursday, July 18. Great Green lawn, California Center for the Arts, Escondido, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. $45 (general admission); $115 (VIP passes). (800) 988-4253. artscenter.org

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George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”