Perla Batalla

Perla Batalla returns to BroadStage after a sold-out performance last season! Sharing her musical roots from Venice, CA to touring with Leonard Cohen, Perla delivers a must-see evening of music and storytelling, shaped by a lifetime of musical discovery, cultural legacy, and artistic collaboration.

Growing up and working in her family’s local record shop, Perla was surrounded by the music of Mexico and South America’s legendary songwriters and singers like Lola Beltran, Mercedes Sosa, Vicente Fernández, and José Alfredo Jiménez. Later as a working musician, Perla became captivated by The American Songbook, and America’s own musical genre, Jazz. She developed a following, performing at LA’s top jazz clubs with her own trio. When celebrated Canadian poet-laureate Leonard Cohen invited her to join his band, Perla got a taste of lyricism and poetry unlike any she had previously encountered in popular music. In Cohen’s themes of the sacred, profane and redemption within brokenness, she began to find her voice. Inevitably, this journey led to writing and performing her own songs, including Perla’s “Mestiza” song cycle, an exultant collection of originals exploring the struggles and splendor of straddling two cultures as a person of mixed race.