Perla Batalla

by Charlotte Dillon
Vocalist, composer, and arranger Perla Batalla was born in Los Angeles, CA. Her father was a musician and owned a popular record store. There were very few forms of music that Batalla didn't get a chance to experience early in her childhood in that busy family store. She found she loved most kinds. Batalla won a scholarship to study at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. Her voice was impressive enough to land her vocal roles in both film and television. After a while she became a background singer for Leonard Cohen and K. D. Lang. By 1993, Batalla was making her first attempts at a solo career. In a year's time, she had recorded a self-titled debut solo album under the Discovery Records label. It took four years before she did a sophomore recording, Mestiza. In 2000, she added a third album to her list of accompaniments, Heaven and Earth: The Mestiza Voyage. Some of the tracks from her albums are "First Time I Felt Rain," "Making Up for Lost Time," "Burning," "Out of the Labyrinth," and "Heaven and Earth." In between time in the recording studio, Batalla performs at festivals and clubs and composes new material. She has worked with numerous artists, including cellist Peggy Baldwin, flutist John Zeretzke, percussionist Michael Faue, guitarist David Batteau, bassist Simeon Pillich, and many others.