Ximena Sariñana

Ximena Sariñana, a Mexican singer-songwriter who first entered entertainment through childhood acting parts, produces reflective adult alternative pop carrying understated jazz shadings and often anchored by piano. Comparisons to Regina Spektor and Norah Jones followed her 2008 debut album Mediocre, which reached number two on the Mexican album chart. After that she concentrated chiefly on music, serving as a judge on the 2014 talent series Mexico Tiene Talento in the same year she issued her third studio album, No Todo lo Puedes Dar.

Born Ximena Sariñana Rivera in Guadalajara in 1985, she is the daughter of film director Fernando Sariñana and screenwriter Carolina Rivera as well as the niece of actress Angélica Rivera. Her screen debut came in her father’s 1994 film Hasta Morir, after which she appeared in the telenovelas Luz Clarita (1996-1997) and María Isabel (1997), performing the theme song for the former. Over the following decade she accumulated roles in a dozen additional feature and short films, among them Todo el Poder (1999), Amar Te Duele (2002), and Dos Abrazos (2007), most involving at least one parent. Amar Te Duele supplied her breakthrough in both acting and music when the hit soundtrack included her song “Las Huellas.”

In 2006 she sang lead for the jazz-funk group Feliz No Cumpleaños, whose members were Alex Sanchez (guitar), Alex Cuevas (keyboards), Levi Serrano (sax), Hugo Chavez (bass), Gerardo Balandrano (percussion), and Uriel Herrera (drums). The band released La Familia Feliz independently that year. She next guested on Volován’s track “Luna” from the 2007 album Monitor, and Warner Music issued her solo debut Mediocre in 2008; the project earned both commercial traction and a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album.

Sariñana followed with a self-titled album in 2011, her first recorded mostly in English. She appeared in her father’s 2013 film Los Fabulosos 7 before releasing her third full-length, No Todo lo Puedes Dar, in 2014. Co-production credits went to Grammy winner John Congleton, Spoon’s Jim Eno, and Plastilina Mosh’s Alejandro Rosso. Its release coincided with her judging stint on Mexico Tiene Talento, the Mexican edition of America’s Got Talent. A recurring role in the comedy series Un Man Date arrived in 2016, and Warner issued her studio album ¿Dónde Bailarán las Niñas? in 2019.