Biography

Leda Valladares (21 December 1919 – 13 July 2012) was an Argentine singer, songwriter, musicologist and folklorist, and poet. Born in San Miguel de Tucumán in northern Argentina, she grew up surrounded by both classical European music and the folk music of the Amerindian people living in the area. From a young age she studied piano and in her teens began a band with her brother that explored folk music, jazz, and blues. She published works of poetry throughout her life. Although she began her university studies at the National University of Tucumán as an English major, after a year she changed course and studied philosophy and education, graduating in 1948. Her schooling was interrupted by a foray into the study of music at the Academy of Fine Art and in independent research among those who performed traditional folk music.

Upon graduation, Valladares taught briefly before moving to Paris in the early 1950s and forming a music duo with María Elena Walsh. They sang traditional Argentine folk music for four years in cafés and cabarets. They returned to Argentina after the 1956 Liberating Revolution had removed Juan Perón from office. There was little appreciation of folk music in Argentina at the time, and though they continued to perform and release albums, their audiences were limited. The two women split up in 1962 and Valladares embarked on a career documenting the folk music traditions of Argentina. Her work between 1960 and 1974 produced a documentary series of albums, Mapa musical de la argentina (Musical Map of Argentina), which recorded and preserved folk music throughout the country's varied regions.

From the early 1970s, Valladares built bridges with popular musicians, playing other styles, like rock, in an effort to stop the commercialization of music. When the Argentine dictatorship ended in 1983, she joined the Movement for the Reconstruction and Development of National Culture and worked with other musicians to present and preserve the country's musical heritage. Her last large work América en Cueros (America in Leather, 1992) presented more than 400 folk songs from throughout the Americas and earned her recognition as a member of honor of UNESCO. She was recognized with a Konex Award in 1984, 1994, and 2005, and was the first recipient of the National Prize for Ethnology and Folklore, given in 1996.