Perla Batalla. Courtesy image
SANTA BARBARA — ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! presents Grammy-nominated vocalist Perla Batalla and her combo in free family concerts at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7 at Isla Vista School, 6875 El Colegio Road, Goleta (805-893-5037); 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8 at Guadalupe City Hall, 918 Obispo St., Guadalupe (805-343-2939); and 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9 at Marjorie Luke Theatre, Santa Barbara Jr. High, 721 E. Cota S. Santa Barbara, (805-884-4087, ext 7), the organization reported in a media release.
Receptions with the artists follow each concert. The program, “Epoca de Oro: Canciones de Amor,” celebrates the beauty and passion of Latin American composers featuring music and poetry of best-loved Latino artists Agustín Lara, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Armando Manzanero and Vicente Fernandez.
Batalla will also perform at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9 at Studio Sunday on the Steps, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara. Families are invited to come for a creative afternoon of beautiful music and make their own art pieces with materials and assistance provided by the SBMA.
She helped kick off the ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! series performing in its very first concerts in 2006. Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Chris Yosst will mark her return with a poem in English and Spanish commissioned for the occasion that will be performed at each of the concerts in February.
Batalla’s current residence in Santa Barbara County runs for five days with outreach and educational sessions countywide including a special trip up to New Cuyama on Feb. 5, where she will visit both schools and the Cuyama Valley Family Resource Center.
She has made her mark as a vocalist, composer and arranger. Born in Los Angeles to an Argentine mother and a Mexican father who was a musician, Batalla grew up surround by music in her family’s Spanish language record store.
Proud of her Mestiza heritage and equally at ease in English and Spanish, Batalla first gained international attention as a backup singer for Leonard Cohen who later encouraged her to embark on a solo career, ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! reported. Her 1998 album Mestiza became an immediate favorite on Public Radio shows throughout the U.S. and was selected as Best Independent Release of the Year by Amazon.com. Heaven and Earth followed in 2000 and gained recognition again from Amazon’s for Emerging Artist of the Year.
Released in 2003 Discoteca Batalla, named for the family record shop, was a compilation of original compositions interspersed with traditional Spanish language classics. Discoteca Batalla appeared on “best of” lists throughout the country andBatalla was invited to perform songs from the album at the Kennedy Center as an artist in residence. In a 2003 Monterey Herald interview Batalla says, “The focus of the album was to show appreciation for the culture that [my parents] brought to my life. That’s where the Spanish fits in; it was the first language I heard at home and it’s also one of the most beautiful languages to listen to.”
In 2005 Batalla released Bird on the Wire, her tribute to Leonard Cohen, which as nominated for a Grammy. In that same year she released Gracias a La Vida, a collection of South American songs inspired by a journey to Buenos Aires where she met her Argentinian family for the first time.
Batalla and songwriter David Batteau were commissioned in 2012 by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to write a piece in honor of the opening of an art exhibition featuring female surrealist artists of Latin America which she performed at LACMA with the Eclipse String Quartet. More recently, Batalla and Batteau have begun touring Blue House, a full-length theatrical concert inspired by the journals, frescos and canvasses of two of the greatest Mexican painters of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
She is married to percussionist and chef Claud Mann, who was host of Dinner and a Movie for twelve seasons.
A consortium of the Marjorie Luke Theatre, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts & Education Center, Isla Vista School, and UCSB Arts & Lectures, ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! received the national Association of Performing Arts Presenters MetLife award in January 2011.
¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! is funded by the James Irvine Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts with additional support from SAGE, the UCSB Office of Education Partnerships, the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, The Marjorie Luke Theatre’s Dreier Family Rent Subsidy Fund, the Santa Barbara Bowl, the Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Latino, the Santa Maria SUN, Radio Bronco, Univision, the Sandman Inn, Best Western South Coast Inn and Ramada Limited. Additional support from the Community Arts and Community Arts Enrichment Grant Programs using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara, in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission. Co-presented by the Marjorie Luke Theatre, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts & Education Center and UCSB Arts & Lectures, in collaboration with the Isla Vista School After School Grant.