A Festival Favorite Returns!
Singer-songwriter Perla Batalla earns critical acclaim for her distinctive voice, emotional honesty, and culture-merging compositions.
Photos by Diego Cabrera
“Above all, Perla Batalla is a born storyteller with a rambunctious sense of humor.…”
- L.A. Times
“Perla Batalla is a gloriously rich mixture of backgrounds and she brings them with her to the stage, with her gorgeous voice full of love, life, mournfulness and joy. It’s a heady combination…” (NoHo)
Perla Batalla’s program for the 2024 Ventura Music Festival is an exemplification of Perla herself. Growing up in her parents’ Spanish language record shop in Venice, CA, Perla was surrounded by the music of Latin America’s most remarkable songwriters; later, as a young singer in Los Angeles, she became captivated by the American songbook, jazz and the infinite possibilities of the genre; when Canadian poet-laureate Leonard Cohen asked her to join his band, Perla was exposed to lyricism and poetry unlike any she had encountered in the canon of modern song.
Inevitably, all of this led to Perla’s writing and performing her own work, including her Mestiza song cycle, exploring the intricacies of straddling two cultures as a person of mixed race, and Blue House, her exultant Frida Kahlo musical which premiered at LACMA and was tapped for production by The Ojai Playwrights Conference.
After eight albums, two one-woman shows, a Grammy nomination, and performances in venues as diverse as The Sydney Opera House, Kennedy Center, Royce Hall, and The Brighton Dome, Perla was recently honored with induction into Ventura’s own Focus on the Masters, dedicated to recognizing the works and lives of accomplished contemporary artists and the importance of the arts to a healthy society.
This year at The Ventura Music Festival, Perla Batalla is thrilled to present a diverse show inspired by her extraordinary musical experiences that continue to inspire her art and life.
Personnel:
Karen Hammack - Piano
Dimitris Mahlis - Guitar,
Michael Velasquez - Bass
Gilberto Gonzalez - Percussion
Robert Kyle - Sax
Eva Batalla-Mann and Jade Hendrix - Back-up Vocals