DIANA GAMEROS
"Deeply versatile in expression, Diana hypnotizes with solo voice, guitar and piano, brings audiences to their feet with her brass and bass trio, and soars like a bird with symphony orchestras. Singing mostly in Spanish, she creates authentic, inspiring music at the borderlands between cultures, languages, and genres."
Diana is a singer, guitarist, pianist, composer, songwriter, music instructor, lead teaching artist with the Lullaby Project and core band member of the Immigrant Orchestra. Based in San Francisco, California, she was born and raised in Ciudad Juárez, México and immigrated to the United States as a teenager to study music in Michigan. Over the last decade in the Bay Area she has released two albums of original songs written in Spanish and English, and Mexican classic songs. In 2014 Diana received the Emerging Leader Award by the Chicana/Latina Foundation. In 2015 she was named one of YBCA’s 100: creative minds, makers, and pioneers that are asking the questions and making the provocations that will shape the future of American culture. NPR Music gave Diana an honorable mention to Arrullo in best Latin albums of the year in 2017. Diana was named one of SF Magazine’s 100 Artists: Artists Putting The East Bay On The Map, in 2018.
Diana is currently a lead and teaching artist in San Francisco, for the Lullaby Project, a project of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute which pairs new and expecting parents and caregivers with professional artists to write and sing personal lullabies for their babies, supporting parental health, aiding childhood development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child.
Diana belongs to the Movement Immigrant Orchestra - a vibrant ensemble featuring musicians from 10 different countries ready to take audiences on a one-of-a-kind musical journey across cultures and continents. This ensemble is part of the broader Movement project, a multi-platform storytelling initiative that centers the voices, stories and songs of immigrant, migrant and refugee musicians, claiming public space for these artists to sing and speak their stories with complexity and nuance. Since 2020, Movement’s radio stories have been featured in nationally syndicated public radio broadcast on PRX’s The World, regularly airing to 2.5 million listeners.
Diana has been highlighted often by NPR's Tiny Desk Concert contest series, and a documentary film about her was released by KQED in 2020. Her music often tells stories of family, migration, identity, and home, and has led her to perform with prominent performers such as Joan Baez, Natalia Lafourcade, McArthur Genius Award winner Taylor Mac and the San Francisco Symphony, among many other artist from all over the world. Diana has composed original scores for documentaries, including Las Muralistas, commissioned by SFMOMA. Diana 's voice and music have appeared on numerous films, documentaries and, most recently, on the television series Mayans MC soundtrack and Netflix's Madre Sólo Hay Dos series. Her songs and story have been featured on Billboard, Mother Jones, NPR’s Weekend Edition, and PRI's The World, to name a few. She has performed at venues such as the SFJAZZ Center, Davies Symphony Hall, The Guggenheim Museum in NY, Boettcher Concert Hall, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Consulate of Mexico, and Kennedy Center for the Arts and Lincoln Center's Atrium. In May 2018, Diana joined the acclaimed Mexican superstar and Latin Grammy winner, Natalia Lafourcade, on her US West Coast tour.
Diana received the 2023 Music Award Grant from the Gerbode Foundation to record a new album at Women’s Audio Mission studio in San Francisco to be released in October 2025.
PRESS REVIEWS
“Diana Gameros’ steady fingerpicking and elegantly simple melody create a calm within the storm, a safe place for big questions and long-ailing wounds that transcend any news cycle. Her voice has a remarkable expressive range. She’s at once strong and breathy — in an instant, wounded and boldly searching.“ — NPR
“If difficult times call for extraordinary voices, Berkeley singer-songwriter and guitarist Gameros is the woman for the hour. The Mexican-born trovista draws on her long experience without papers to explore the plight of border crossers of all stripes, bringing luminous humanity to a topic defined by searing heat rather than light. Her latest release, Arrullo (2017), is a beautifully textured acoustic session of Mexican classic songs and an artistic triumph for these ethnophobic times.” — San Francisco Magazine
“A dazzling female on the rise”. — Mother Jones Magazine
"Diana Gameros has the rare quality as a vocalist of bringing forth a sound which we hear but cannot express. Like Lila Downs, Lhasa, Mercedes Sosa, she digs deep." — Joanna Manqueros KPFA
PAST SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Diana has performed at SFJAZZ Center, Davies Symphony Hall with the San Francisco Symphony, Paramount Theater with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, Boettcher Concert Hall with the Colorado Symphony, Fox Theater with Magik*Magik Orchestra, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Consulate of Mexico, Hope and Healing Series at Herbst Theater, Bohemian Nights Festival with Los Dreamers (lead by Raul Pacheco from Ozomatli and Shawn King from Devotchka), former US vice president Joe Biden fundraiser event, Ballroom Marfa’s Art Basel event, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, and most recently, she performed at Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center for the Arts and Lincoln Center's Atrium.



PARTICIPATION WITH OTHER ARTISTS
Diana has open for docens of recognized artists, including Bebel Gilberto, La Santa Cecilia, Gaby Moreno, Ximena Sariñana, Las Cafeteras, Torreblanca, Tank and the Bangas, David Aguilar, among others, and sang alongside McArthur Genius Award recipient Taylor Mac, and with multi-Latin Grammy winner Natalia Lafourcade on her 2018 MUSAS West Coast Tour.
MUSIC FOR FILMS
Diana's voice and musical compositions have been featured on multiple independent films and documentaries. Most recently her song "Libre Y Serena"appeared on Netflix's Madre Sólo Hay Dos series, and she sang three songs, including the theme song for the second season, for the FX television series MAYANS MC soundtrack.


AWARDS and HONORABLE MENTIONS
Emerging Leader Award by the Chicana/Latina Foundation
(2014)
YBCA 100 Artist: creative minds, makers, and pioneers that are asking the questions and making the provocations that will shape the future of American culture.
(2015)
Diana's album "Arrullo" receives honorable mention from NPR's Top Latin Albums Of the Year (2017)
Named one of SF Magazine’s 100 Artists: Artists Putting The East Bay On The Map
(2018)
Music Award Grant by the Gerbode Foundation
(2023)
MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS
Diana’s music and projects have been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and All Songs Considered, Billboard Magazine, Mother Jones, Boing Boing, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Magazine, SF Weekly, OC Weekly, 48 Hills, Refinery 29, PRI’s The World, PBS’s News Hour, BammTv and many others.






ARRULLO
In November 2017, Diana released Arrullo a new album of traditional Mexican songs that she arranged and directed to pay homage to her heritage and homeland. Recorded at renowned Women’s Audio Mission Studio, it features the Magik*Magik string quartet, Patrick Wolff and Diana’s mother, Altagracia Estupiñan.
ALBUM REVIEW by NPR:
On 'Arrullo,' Diana Gameros Delivers On Her Promise
TRACK PREMIERE by BILLBOARD:
Diana Gameros Sends a Message to Her Family In Mexico With 'Despierta': Premiere


