Dona Ivone Lara

Yvonne Lara da Costa OMC (April 13, 1922 – April 16, 2018), better known as Dona Ivone Lara, was a Brazilian singer and composer. Known as the Queen of Samba and Great Lady of Samba, she was the first woman to sign a samba-enredo and take part in a wing of composers in the school, Império Serrano.

Earning degrees in nursing and social work, she played an important role pioneering occupational therapy and worked alongside Dr. Nise da Silveira in psychiatric reform in Brazil. She dedicated herself to this activity for more than 30 years, before retiring and focusing exclusively on her artistic career.

Biography

Dona Ivone Lara was born as Yvonne Lara da Costa on April 13, 1922 on the street Voluntários da Pátria, in Botafogo, Zona Sul in Rio de Janeiro. She was the first daughter of seamstress Emerentina Bento da Silva and João da Silva Lara. Parallelly in work, both of her parents had musical interests: he was a 7-string guitar player and participated in parades with the Bloco dos Africanos, and she was an excellent singer and lended her soprano voice to traditional ranchos carnavalescos in Rio de Janeiro, such as Flor do Abacate and Ameno Resedá – in which João also performed. Trained in nursing and social work, she was a health professional for more than 30 years before retiring in 1977.

With the death of her father, when she was younger than 3 years old, and her mother, when she was 16 years old, she was raised by aunts and uncles. She learned how to play cavaquinho from them, and listened to samba alongside her cousin, Mestre Fuleiro. She took voice lessons from Lucília Guimarães and was praised by Dona Lucília's husband, the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.