Born in Bucharest, Romania, Mara always heard stories about Brazil from her grandfather, who worked as an engineer on the construction of the Romanian embassy building in Brasília. In 2013, she met guitarist Cauê De Marinis and began her career as a singer in São Paulo, playing Brazilian music and participating in jam sessions and “rodas de samba”. In 2018, she established her own musical project, with which she performed at jazz festivals in Romania, Italy, Sweden and Brazil alongside Brazilian and Romanian musicians. Dividing her music and life between Bucharest and São Paulo, Mara Halunga has been carried along by this “Vento Leste” (Eastern Wind ) her first original album in Portuguese language, with a Romanian twist, to offer her own vision of Brazilian music.