Violeta Parra

Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (San Carlos, Chile, October 4, 1917 – Santiago, Chile, February 5, 1967) was a singer, poet and painter.

Violeta Parra is credited with recovering and spreading Chile's popular tradition, work later carried on by the Nueva Canción Chilena movement. Her songs are always marked by denunciation and protest against social injustice.

Nicanor Parra's sister, Violeta had a difficult childhood due to her family's financial hardship. These very struggles pushed her to try to earn money by singing and playing music (together with her siblings) in the streets, in circuses, and even in brothels.

In 1937 she moved to Santiago, Chile, where she met and married Luis Cereceda. The marriage, which ended in 1948, produced two children, Ángel and Isabel, who would later follow in their mother's footsteps and become singers themselves.

Violeta worked playing in dance halls and occasionally for small radio stations. Meanwhile, she began to take an interest in researching her country's popular traditions.

In 1949 she married again, and from this new relationship came her daughters Luisa and Rosita Clara. In 1953, after a recital at Pablo Neruda's house, she was invited by Radio Chile to host a program on local folklore.

In 1954 she received the Caupolicán award and began a series of tours that would take her to Europe, for the Warsaw World Festival of Youth, and to the Soviet Union.

She then stayed in Paris for almost two years, returning to Chile in 1956, where she began combining her musical activity (recitals and research) with painting.

In 1961 she returned to Europe, accompanied by her children Isabel and Ángel, for a long tour that also brought her to Italy.

In 1964 she exhibited her works at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre in Paris.

In 1965 she returned to Chile, where she lived in a large tent (the "carpa de la Reina") on the outskirts of the capital, conceived as a cultural center devoted to Chilean folklore.

She continued her musical activity, but her complicated love life plunged her into deep depression (in 1960 she had fallen in love with the Swiss singer Gilbert Favré). On February 5, 1967, she took her own life in her tent.

Her last song, "Gracias a la Vida" (also performed by numerous other singers, including Mercedes Sosa, Joan Baez and, in Italy, Gabriella Ferri), can be considered her spiritual testament. The song appears on the album "Las últimas composiciones" (1966).

In 1970 the collection "Decimas" was published, from which the group Inti-Illimani, together with Isabel Parra, drew the cantata "Canto para una semilla".

A collection of her song lyrics was published in Italy under the simple title "Canzoni" (Newton Compton, 1979).

(Source: Last.fm)