Perla Batalla

While today Perla Batalla can be found sharing the stage with such musicians as Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright and Jackson Browne, it was her early years touring and recording with the celebrated Canadian poet, Leonard Cohen that shaped her as an artist in her own right. With Cohen’s encouragement, Perla began performing her own songs in Los Angeles clubs in the late 1990s. During this period, she was noticed by Elektra Records found- er, Jac Holzman (The Doors, Queen, Judy Collins), and signed to the Discovery-Warner label.

Perla Batalla continues to forge her reputation as an essential interpreter of Leonard Cohen’s music. Perla’s first homage to Cohen, Bird on the Wire was recorded with Cohen’s blessing: he attended the studio sessions, weighed in on material, and uncharacteristically participated in a photo session at his Los Angeles home to help promote the project.

Perla’s powerful follow-up Cohen undertaking, A Letter to Leonard Cohen: Tribute to a Friend, picks up where she left off, and this time features Batalla’s original compositions inspired by two decades of musical exchanges with Canada’s poet laureate.

Perla Batalla was born in Los Angeles, California to an immigrant family immersed in music. Her Afro-Mexican dad was an itinerant mariachi singer, while her Argentine mom ran a family record store called Discoteca Batalla. There, by her mother’s side, Perla was exposed to an education of non-stop music cutting across language and genre. Alone in the shop while her mom ran errands, Perla began dreaming of one day being a singer. Against her parents’ wishes, she left home at sixteen, studying opera and theater during the day and performing in clubs at night.

Since then, Perla Batalla has appeared in a myriad of concert venues throughout the world as varied as The Sydney Opera House, Kennedy Center, Royce Hall, and The Brighton Dome. She has released seven albums and co-written and appeared in two one-woman shows: her celebrated Mestiza song cycle, exploring the intricacies of straddling different cultures as a person of mixed race, and Blue House, an exultant Frida Kahlo musical  commissioned by Los Angeles County Museum of Art and tapped for production by The Ojai Playwrights Conference.

In 2024, Perla was inducted into Focus on the Masters, dedicated to recognizing the works and lives of accomplished contemporary artists in California. She has also been honored with two affiliated U.N. awards: The Earth Charter Award, for extraordinary  devotion to social and economic justice, and The Environmental Peacebuilding Award, for advancing social justice through art and music.

Perla currently divides her time between Ojai, California and Barcelona, Spain.

“Batalla’s gorgeous, rich, contralto voice adds another layer of beauty to Cohen’s elegantly crafted songs.”
– San Jose Mercury News

“…Batalla is blessed with an assured and matured vocal instrument, rich, sonorous, and deep….”
— Joe Woodard, SB Independent