Xiomara Laugart

Originally from the Guantanamo province of Cuba, Xiomara Laugart began her career at the age of 15, performing several different expressions of traditional and contemporary Cuban music. During the 1980s, she entered the Adolfo Guzman Contest for Cuban music where she was granted the highest award. She went on to win other international awards at Poland’s Sopot Festival in 1985, and at Germany’s Dresden Festival in 1986. After having recorded self-titled albums in Cuba, she moved to Rome and later to New York.

Soon, Xiomara was invited to be the guest singer on two jazz albums, Deep Rumba by Kip Hanrahan and Latin Lullaby by Ellipsis Art, and on Jacky Terrason's new album What It Is released in April of 1999 by Blue Note Records. She also was featured in the first single from the recent album by Fun Loving Criminals released worldwide in 2001. Laugart's monthly showcases at New York City's famed underground Zinc Bar have been called legendary.

Xiomara is currently a vocalist in Yerba Buena, whose first album President Alien was nominated for a Grammy. The songs from this first album have been used in Pepsi commercials, and in movies, such as Havana Nights. Yerba Buena’s second album Island Life, a brilliant mix of rhythms to which Xiomara adds her African and Caribbean legacy, was released in 2005.

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