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Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival
Presented by the Redlands Community Music Association, Inc.
Singer Perla Batalla brings her eclectic styles to Redlands Bowl
Some critics have compared her to Edith Piaf, Patsy Cline, and Aretha Franklin – she has that kind of impact. The Redlands Bowl audience members will have the opportunity to hear singer Perla Batalla for themselves on Friday, July 15 as the Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival continues.
Batalla performs on stages from Australia to Argentina to the United States, presenting an eclectic performance style and singing everything from Gershwin to Mexican Lullabies, from traditional Latino melodies to bluesy ballads with a contemporary twist. In her career, she has sung with k.d. lang, the Gypsy Kings, Iggy Pop, and others, including Leonard Cohen. Since 1993, she has performed as a solo artist.
A product of a musical family, Batalla grew up in Los Angeles where her father was a Mexican singer and radio personality who also owned a record store called Discoteca Batalla. After high school, she attended the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in Hollywood where she began to refine her performance style. The tremendous variety of music she heard with her family has influenced her own performing.
“I love the unique experience of singing live,” Batalla said in a recent Internet interview. “There is nothing like it, to express what you feel and to have your intentions felt by an audience. Perhaps it is also the element of risk that makes it particularly thrilling.”
Typical of jazz and contemporary performers, Batalla will perform at Redlands Bowl without a defined program. She will perform many of her own compositions and the works of other composers.
“I like to add to my performance some of the classic Spanish language songs that I have known all my life,” she said. “To me, they are so much a part of what I am made of.”
Her only message, she said, is that there is always hope where there is love.
She performs with David Batteau on guitar, Debra Dobkin on drums, Simeon Pillich on bass, and Karen Hammack on piano. Batteau and Dobkin have worked with Bonnie Raitt among others, Pillich is touring with the Broadway musical, “Rent,” and Hammack is currently recording her new CD with the Karen Hammack trio.
This concert is co-sponsored by La-Z-Boy West. Like all Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival performances, it is free of charge, and a free-will offering will be collected at intermission. The ushers for the program will be representatives from La-Z-Boy West and members of the Northside Impact Committee. The intermission speaker will be Gilberto Gil, member of the Redlands City Council.
The Redlands Bowl is located on Eureka Street just south of Brookside Avenue in Redlands. For information and directions, call (909) 793-7316 or visit the Web site at www.redlandsbowl.org.
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