Violeta Parra

She was one of the nine children of the Parra family. Her father, Nicanor Parra Alarcón, was a music teacher. Her mother, Clarisa Sandoval Navarrete had grown up in the countryside and was a seamstress. She sang and played the guitar, and taught Violeta and her siblings traditional folk songs. Among her brothers were the notable modern poet, better known as the "anti-poet", Nicanor Parra (1914–2018), and fellow folklorist Roberto Parra (1921–1995). Her son, Ángel Parra, and her daughter, Isabel Parra, are also important figures in the development of the Nueva Canción Chilena. Their children have also mostly maintained the family's artistic traditions.

Parra began singing songs of Spanish origin, from the repertoire of the famous Argentinian singers Lolita Torres and Imperio Argentina. She sang in restaurants and, also, in theatres, calling herself Violeta de Mayo.

In 1952 encouraged by her brother Nicanor, Violeta began to collect and collate authentic Chilean folk music from all over the country. Don Isaiah Angulo, a tenant farmer, taught her to play the guitarrón, a traditional Chilean guitar-like instrument with 25 strings. She began composing her own songs based on traditional folk forms.

In July 1955, Violeta moved to Paris, where she performed at the nightclub "L'Escale" in the Quartier Latin. She made contacts with European artists and intellectuals, and through the intervention of the anthropologist Paul Rivet, she recorded at the National Sound Archive of the "Musée de l'Homme" La Sorbonne in Paris, where she left a guitarrón and tapes of her collections of Chilean folklore.

In November 1957, Violeta returned to Chile and recorded the series The Folklore of Chile. The following year, she founded the National Museum of Folkloric Art (Museo Nacional de Arte Folklórico) in Concepción, under the University of Concepción (Universidad de Concepción). During this time, she composed many décimas, a Latin American poetry form for which she is well known.

On 4 October 1960, the day of her birthday, she met Swiss clarinetist Gilbert Favre with whom she became romantically involved and to whom she wrote the song Run Run.

In 1962 she embarked, with the Chilean delegation, for Finland to participate in the 8th "World Festival of Youth and Students" held in Helsinki. After touring the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy and France, Violeta Parra moved to Paris, where she performed at La Candelaria and L'Escale, in the Latin Quarter, gave recitals at the "Théâtre Des Nations" of UNESCO and performed on radio and television with her children. She then started living with Gilbert Favre in Geneva, dividing her time between France and Switzerland, where she also gave concerts, appeared in TV and exhibited her art.

In 1963 she recorded in Paris, revolutionary and peasant songs, which would be published in 1971 under the title Songs rediscovered in Paris She wrote the book Popular Poetry of the Andes. The Parras took part in the concert of "L'Humanité" (official newspaper of the French Communist Party.

In April 1964 she did an exhibition of her arpilleras, oil paintings and wire sculptures in the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Louvre – the first solo exhibition of a Latin American artist at the museum. In 1965, the publisher François Maspero, Paris, published her book Poésie Populaire des Andes. In Geneva, Swiss television made a documentary about the artist and her work, Violeta Parra, Chilean Embroiderer.

Favre and Parra returned to South America, in June 1965. Soon after, however, Favre and Parra broke up, provoked by his desire to live in Bolivia where he was part of a successful Bolivian music act, Los Jairas.

In 1966, she travelled to La Paz to meet with Gilbert Favre, where she regularly appeared in the Peña Naira. She came back to Chile with Altiplano groups, presenting them in her carpa, on television, and in her children's Peña. She also performed in concert at the Chilean southern cities of Osorno and Punta Arenas, invited by René Largo Farias, under the "Chile Ríe y Canta" ("Chile Laughs and Sings") program. Accompanied by her children and Uruguayan Alberto Zapicán, she recorded for RCA Victor the LP The Last Compositions of Violeta Parra. In that year, Favre returned briefly to Chile with his group, but declined to stay, because in the meantime he had married in Bolivia.

In 1967 Parra died by suicide via gunshot. Several memorials were held after her death, both in Chile and abroad. She was an inspiration for several Latin-American artists, such as Victor Jara and the musical movement of the "Nueva Cancion Chilena", which renewed interest in Chilean folklore.