The founder of Chilean folk music

The founder of Chilean folk music

Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval was born on october 4th, 1917 in San Carlos (Chillán, Chile). Daughter of Nicanor Parra Parra and Clarisa Sandoval Navarrete, Violeta had five brothers and two half brothers. From small felt love for music and Chilean folklore, his father, a primary school teacher, was a renowned folklorist in the region. Violet's childhood was spent in the field. His mother was busy on the sewing machine to cooperate in the maintenance of the large family. Violet was in constant conditions, including a smallpox attack in three years. While improved, amused with his brothers in the neighboring waters Ñuble river and mills and barracks in the sector. After moving to Santiago, began performing with her sister Hilda Parra Sisters Duo. In 1942 he won first prize in a singing contest held at the Teatro Spanish Baquedano, and thereafter was hired frequently until he went to Valparaiso, where he found his true calling. The constant travel around the country put him in touch with social reality Chilean plagued by economic inequality. Violeta Parra adopted a militant stance leftist policy that led him to seek the roots of popular music.

He spent the first years of the 1960s in Europe, where he conducted performances in various countries. In 1964 he had the opportunity to hold a solo exhibition of his art work in the Louvre Museum, the first by a Latin American artist. Back in Santiago, along with his brother Nicanor and her older children, encouraged the "Peña de los Parra," a legendary sounding name in popular music in Latin America.

Her creativity also led to cultivate ceramics, tapestry making, painting and poetry. Unfortunately, due to severe depression, Violeta Parra committed suicide on February 5th, 1967, just before going on stage in La Reina.

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