What is La Peña?
La Peña NYC is an exclusive experience that brings the authentic Peruvian jarana back to life: a space where everything is shared as family, where you feel right at home.
Valses, tonderos, marineras, landós, zamacuecas and festejos bring us together and gather us as a community: new generations connect with their roots, and those who have spent years far from Peru feel it close again.
This is an authentic peña — one of the very few left — and it has become a landmark of Peruvian culture in the diaspora: live music, criollo home cooking, and the hospitality of a home.
La Peña NYC is led by Araceli Poma, a two-time Latin Grammy–nominated Peruvian singer who grew up singing alongside the masters of the tradition — and who today opens her doors so that tradition stays alive in New York.
May the jarana find us!
The Founder
Araceli Poma
“La Peña is the space that makes me feel at home. When I moved to New York, I missed the jaranas I had lived in the traditional peñas. That longing led me to open this space, La Peña NYC, and that is what I want to give to every Peruvian living far away: that for one night, the distance disappears — and that the Jarana finds us.” — Araceli Poma
Araceli Poma was shaped where criollo music is truly learned: in the peñas — those cultural centers and musical houses where the tradition is sung from voice to voice — growing up alongside the old masters of the jarana. Many of them are no longer with us; their music, however, lives on. Because Araceli didn’t simply inherit it: she carries it forward, researches it, and takes it around the world.
Today, based in New York, she is one of the voices of Peruvian music in the world: a singer, composer, and cultural organizer, twice nominated for the Latin Grammy, honored by Forbes Peru, and devoted for years to researching, sharing, and defending the traditional musics of her country — from Afro-Peruvian repertoires to songs that were on the verge of being forgotten.
La Peña NYC was born out of longing. That is why Araceli created an intimate space and turned it into the heart of criollo music in New York — a place where every edition carries her voice and her hospitality.
The Experience
A living experience, in the warmth of a home: guitar and cajón spark the jarana, the community celebrates in song, and traditional Peruvian food, made from scratch at home, works its magic.
The Community
Contact
For bookings, presentations, productions and musical events.