"Lara Lavi is the quintessential songstress for the millenium, timeless songs, flawless execution."
- Village Voice

I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Both my parents were in the arts and academic fields, which is where I got my love of music and words. I began playing piano at three, violin at seven, and performed with a number of symphony orchestras. While attending the University of Chicago, I took a job as a waitress at the legendary Chicago blues room, the Kingston Mines. Musicians like Buddy Guy and Jimmy Johnson took me under their wing and pushed me up on that stage, telling me to go for it. That's how I went from being a shy back-up vocalist to fronting the band. I loved it.

To the relief of my parents, I left the Mines in 1980 and returned to school, studying wildlife biology at the University of Michigan and then law at the University of Oregon. But I never gave up my music. While living in Eugene, Oregon, I collaborated with an old family friend, Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers. That's how we started the band Flambeaux which toured the West Coast during my law school days.

By 1989, I had moved to Seattle, passed the state bar, and began work as a lead attorney for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe on everything from treaty rights protection to negotiating a management agreement for construction of a 23,000-seat amphitheater on the reservation.

In 1990 I recorded my first album, The Art of Living. And a year later, along with Charles Neville, Arlie Neskahi, Navajo, and my current co-collaborator, Maurice Jones Jr., I helped found Songcatchers. Songcatchers is a merger of rock, soul, jazz, and Native American music and led to the release of the critically heralded album, Dreaming in Color. We even toured extensively with Peter Gabriel and WOMAD.

As an advocate for Native Americans, I've never had a romantic view about their current situation, but I have come to know that they are part of a living culture. With their permission and participation, I experimented with their music, but I never pretended to be one of them. I have my own musical history, my own musical future.

Now, ten years later, here I am on the Internet, with a brand-new future for my voice and my music. Hope you like what you hear!