Lua Project at La Peña!

The Lua Project visits the La Peña Lounge on their national tour!

Lua is a cultural pollinator, bridging together musical styles from different continents and different centuries, drawing on the musical traditions of their own cultural past.

The music is inspired by Mexican and Appalachian song forms, Eastern European tonalities and Baroque melodic ideas. They have created a repertoire that constitutes a new traditional music that is being shared with their children to experience, transform, and pass on.

Join us for an opportunity to get up close and personal with this touring band for an intimate concert on our lounge stage. Come early at 5:30pm to reserve your seat and have dinner and drinks (optional), and enjoy the concert from 6:00pm-8:00pm.

Although currently on tour and living on the other side of the country, the Lua project has roots and connections with La Peña and the Bay Area, and it will be a homecoming for some of the members.

Date: Wednesday, July 9th, 2025

Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (doors open at 5:30 PM)

Dinner Service from Los Cilantros begins at 5:30pm, and you are welcome to enjoy food and drink during the concert.

Location: The Lounge Stage at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA

Tickets -

• Sliding Scale: $15-$30
• La Peña Member: 25% off for you and a guest

Click here to learn more about La Peña Membership

Accessibility

• La Peña is a wheelchair-accessible venue with step-less entry, wide doorways, and accessible restrooms.
• Masks are strongly encouraged. If you’re experiencing COVID-19, cold, or flu-like symptoms, please consider staying home to protect our community. HEPA air purifiers operate throughout our space.
• Restrooms are all-gender

We strive to make La Peña a welcoming, accessible space for everyone. If you have any specific needs or questions about accessibility, contact us in advance, and we’ll do our best to accommodate. Email us at info@lapena.org

La Peña Membership

Become a La Peña member today! Enjoy a 25% discount on tickets to this event, plus access to other exclusive perks. Learn more at: Lapena.org/members

Questions?

Contact us at info@lapena.org.

Getting to La Peña

• Public Transit: The 18 bus line stops directly across the street (Shattuck & Woolsey), and Ashby BART is just two blocks away.
• Parking: Free street parking is available, or park at the Ashby BART station for a fee.
• Bike-Friendly: Bike racks are available outside the venue.Wedn

Meet the Artists:

Lua Project is a Virginia-based music project creating “Appalachiano” music—a spirited fusion of Latin American folk styles, traditional Appalachian song forms, and Eastern European roots traditions. Led by vocalist, songwriter, and dancer Estela Díaz Knott, with David Berzonsky on upright bass and requinto, their daughter Luna Berzonsky on violin, vocals, and jarana, Matty Metcalfe on Accordion, and Mirabelle Metcalfe on Guitar and Percussion. The group draws from their family heritage, oral histories, and generations of migration to build musical bridges across cultures. Their performances blend rich harmonies, nuanced instrumental textures, and cultural reflection into an immersive experience. Lua Project invites audiences into a moving celebration of identity, resilience, and connection.

Estela Diaz Knott grew up in the Shenandoah Valley, daughter of a Scots-Irish factory worker, and a Mexican mother.  Estela’s family has been a beacon for migrant farmworkers and Spanish speaking immigrants for 50 years. As a child she was rooted in the clogging traditions of the Shenandoah Valley, as well as her mother’s musical traditions from the borderlands of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas.  As an adult, she has performed widely both throughout Appalachia and California, as well as in Veracruz, Mexico, and Lima, Peru. She studied son jarocho in Veracruz with Pablo Campechano Gorgonio and Zenen Zeferino, with whom she collaborated on the Virginia Humanities sponsored project, Mexilachian Son: New Songs from an Emerging Virginia Culture. She studied cajon with master afro-peruvian percussionist Chebo Ballumbrosio, and was a faculty member of La Tarumba, a circus arts school in Lima, Peru. She is a member of the Virginia Commission for the Arts Touring Artist roster, and has received multiple grant awards from Virginia Humanities & Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia funded by the Mellon Foundation. 

She has performed and presented at many conferences dedicated to Appalachian and World music, including the National String Band Summit at Eastern Tennessee State University, the Rural Education Center Conference at Virginia Tech, the Berea College Festival of Traditional music, and the SOMOS conference at James Madison University. She has partnered with Dr. Sophia Enriquez to teach several workshops to university music education students on how to incorporate Mexilachian folk music concepts into their classrooms, including the Smithsonian Folkways World Music Pedagogy Course at West Virginia University.

She is also an important community organizer in Central Virginia, collaborating with immigrant advocacy groups, most notably Sin Barreras, to create C’ville Sabroso, a groundbreaking Latin music and dance festival. She has also been the lead organizer of Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Charlottesville, VA, efforts that were recognized when she was brought to James Madison University as a workshop leader for their event, Dialogues with History: Dia de los Muertos.

In 2021, Estela was chosen by the Mexican government as one of 40 Mexican American artists to participate in the 2nd Bi-national Conference for Artists of Mexican Origin based in the United States, in Mexico City.

David Berzonsky is an accomplished bassist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. His original compositions and arrangements are in homage to his Jewish and Appalachian heritage, seeking to re-root old world melodies into the rich rhythmic soil of the New World. He is a member of the Virginia Commision for the Arts Touring Artist roster, and has received multiple grant awards from Virginia Humanities. He is known for his versatility as a bassist, with a range that includes jazz, latin, bossanova, reggae, and Malian traditional music. He has performed at the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage with two groups– acclaimed gypsy jazz ensemble The Olivarez Trio, and with the Malian griot and ngoni master Cheick Hamala Diabate. He has written several Jewish liturgical melodies which have been performed at Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville, Va and has performed at Temple Micah in Washington, DC. He is also a passionate and dedicated early childhood and family music instructor, who has taught thousands of families in Charlottesville, Va and Berkeley, Ca.

Luna Berzonsky is a talented multi-instrumentalist and graphic artist, who fulfills a number of roles in Lua Project— on percussion, violin, jarana, and vocals. She has performed widely with the group over the past year, charming audiences with her crystalline high harmonies and warm stage presence. She has begun working on her own arrangements and compositions, and collaborates closely with her parents, Estela and David, on many of the songs they compose, especially the Jewish themed pieces.

Matty Metcalfe is a virtuoso accordionist and multi-instrumentalist whose musical range includes Irish, bluegrass, Klezmer, classical, jazz, pop, and zydeco styles. He is also in demand as a session and touring musician, musical director/arranger for theatrical productions, and pedagogue. He worked for 10 years at the Harvard Divinity School Center for the Study of World Religions, booking and producing performances of spiritual and devotional music from around the world. The diversity of instruments and approaches that he brings to Lua Project illuminate each song and add color to the prismatic blend of tones in the sonic space the group creates.