Dom La Nena

Dom La Nena

Dom La Nena is the stage name of Dominique Pinto, a Brazilian cellist, singer and songwriter from Porto Alegre, Brazil. Born in 1989, she studies piano from the age of five and then switches to cello three years later.

Early life and training

At the age of eight, she moves to Paris while her father pursues doctoral studies. Five years later, when she returns to Brazil, she begins writing letters to the American cellist Christine Walevska. Walevska encourages her to move to Buenos Aires and study with her, and with her parents’ permission she relocates to Argentina, where she trains under Walevska for several years. She returns to Paris at eighteen.

Career

Dom La Nena soon gets her first pop performance, a session with Jane Birkin at Le Palace in Paris in March 2009. Over the next two years she tours with Birkin and also supports Jeanne Moreau. After returning from Birkin’s international tour, she begins work on her first album.

She meets singer-songwriter Piers Faccini at a social dinner in Paris, and they develop an artistic partnership. Faccini suggests that she use his home studio in the Cévennes Mountains in France, where she records almost all of her parts in less than a week. Faccini then adds instruments to her tracks. The result is Ela, a debut album made up of thirteen compositions and released in 2013 in the USA and Canada.

Other work

Dom La Nena is also a member of Birds on a Wire.