March 5th, 2020 6pm Stage 1
Helena Holleran
Helena Holleran is a singer-songwriter/musician and performing artist from San Diego, California. Her eclectic sound draws influence from 60s/70s rock & roll, R&B, folk, jazz, Latin, and hints of Reggae. Her original music pays homage to the artists she deeply appreciate’s across decades, such as Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, King Pleasure, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, Esperanza Spalding, Lauryn Hill, & more. Whether as a solo act or with her band, Helena’s sweet songbird-soul melodies and often profound lyrics inspire a subtle yet undeniable power that engages her audience in a trance-like state.
Some of Helena’s most notable performances include the House of Blues San Diego (2014, 2015), Music Box (2017), The Village Studios in West Hollywood, CA with the Flight of Voices Collective (2018), Hotel Cafe Hollywood (2018), Belly Up, Solana Beach (2019), and Lightening In a Bottle Music Festival (2018, 2019).
Helena continues to hone her craft through weekly performances in the San Diego & Orange county areas, all whilst writing and recording her solo debut EP, Confluence, which she plans to release in 2020. Some of Helena’s favorite collaborations include projects with childhood friend and now rising solo artist, Mia Garcia (Mr. Moonman, 2018), Los Angeles based Flight of Voices Collective (videos and shows 2018, 2019), and the Santa Cruz grown, Ocean Beach based, dub-hop 10-piece known as Boostive (feat. vocalist on most recent album release - Cream Supreme, 2019).
Aside from creating and performing music, Helena is also passionate about organizing music festivals. Helena recently coordinated and hosted a day fest on July 13th, 2019 at Helia Brewing Company, Vista. She curated a carefully selected group of talented San Diego musicians, bands, artists, and creative types alike to help her vision come alive for the very first Helia Fest. Helena hopes to make Helia Fest a series with the potential to grow into a variety of larger scale music & arts events. The purpose of these events would be to build community, share beautiful music & art, and most importantly raise awareness & funds for causes such as music education and music therapy. Part of this inspiration comes from Helena’s involvement with Banding Together, a San Diego non-profit organization focused in music therapy for young adults with special needs. Since 2017, Helena has volunteered as a mentor and now guest musician (since 2018) .
Mia Garcia
San Diego artist, Mia Garcia, has been cooking up grooves and refining her musical palette
since her early years - drawing inspiration from artists such as D’Angelo, Moonchild, Erykah Badu, and Hiatus Kaiyote. A typical set with this rising Pickup Jazz guitarist/producer/multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter will consist of a tasteful blend between jazz, folk, neo-soul and RnB.