Liamna Pestana Roche
The Living Voice of Lutes & Guitars
Music Opened the Door to Another World
About Me
Liamna Pestana Roche is a Cuban-American guitarist and scholar specializing in early plucked instruments and their connection to the modern guitar. Liamna performs on renaissance, baroque, 6-course and XIX c. guitars, classical guitar, medieval citole, renaissance vihuela and lute, archlute, and Cuban tres, among others.Liamna has appeared in concerts and lecture-recitals in the United States and abroad, highlighting overlooked transitional instruments in the guitar’s evolution. Currently she is pursuing her doctoral studies at University of Miami in Classical Guitar Performance and she teaches guitar at the New World School of the Arts.
"My introduction to music opened the door to a world I never knew existed. I started playing guitar at nine, and my curiosity led me deeper into the arts from traditional Cuban instruments and the vihuela to the conservatory, Mexico, and eventually the ancient world of medieval and Baroque music."- Liamna Pestana
Where Spain and the Americas meet in music.
Nova Hispania Ensemble
Nova Hispania creates immersive concert programs that bring the musical worlds of Spain and Hispano-America to life. Through voices, historical instruments, poetry, and storytelling, each program explores a different chapter of the early Hispanic musical tradition.
Nova Hispania Early Music Ensemble brings to life the musical worlds that connected Spain and Hispano-America from the Renaissance through the Baroque. Through voices, historical instruments, poetry, dance, and storytelling, the ensemble explores a repertoire shaped by centuries of cultural encounter and transatlantic exchange.Founded by multi-instrumentalists Luciana Kube and Liamna Pestana Roche, Nova Hispania combines historically informed performance with research and an imaginative approach to concert presentation. Its programs move between intimate songs, theatrical tonos humanos, sacred and secular repertories, dances, and instrumental music preserved in European and Latin American sources.More than reconstructing the past, Nova Hispania seeks to make this music present again heard, understood, and experienced as a living art.
Refine your artistry.
Study with me
Personalized private instruction is designed for students seeking to grow as thoughtful, expressive, and confident musicians. Whether beginning a musical journey, preparing for advanced study, or exploring classical guitar and historical plucked instruments, each lesson is tailored to the student’s individual goals, experience, and artistic interests.
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Connect with me
Connect with me and discover the stories, sounds, and instruments of early music. Follow my work, upcoming performances, projects, and musical journeys across centuries and cultures.