Lourdes Perez

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Lourdes Perez (b. 1961 San Sebastian, Puerto Rico) is a prolific contemporary recording artist, songwriter, composer, arranger, poet, vocalist and guitarist. She is also one of few female decimistas (writers of décima, a specialized form of Spanish poetry). Lourdes’ music – often conjuring comparisons to the soulful world music genres of cante jondo, morna and fado – draws from her jíbara (Puerto Rican mountain) roots and a socially conscious genre of Spanish/pan-Latin American music called nueva trova or nueva canción.
Considered by many to be "among the great Latin American female vocalists" and songwriters, Puerto Rican-born Lourdes Perez has performed duets onstage with numerous legendary and diverse artists, from Argentinean singer Mercedes Sosa and Mexican master decimista Guillermo Velazquez to Canadian pop artist Jane Siberry. Highly acclaimed internationally for her “ability to transcend language…with her achingly beautiful contralto voice,” she has been described by music critic Michael Corcoran as “Edith Piaf fronting the Gypsy Kings.” Wielding a startling combination of power and fragility within the same voice, her varied audiences often find themselves crying without necessarily understanding a word.
A fiercely independent and humble musician, Lourdes has devoted her work to promoting human rights. Her most recent release, Este Filo, is dedicated to Carmen Jimenez "Doña Titin," wife of Rafael Cancel Miranda, and a heroine of the struggle for the dignity and sovereignty of Puerto Rico. A concert at a Palestinian refugee camp in 2002 prompted her Spanish translation of the beloved Arabic song by Ahmad Kaabour/Tawfeeq Zayad, "Unadeekum (Te llamo)," which was donated as a single to the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund (www.pcwf.org) and later released as a featured song on Este Filo. The English translation of a song that Pérez wrote , "Sierra Blanca," was read into the U.S. Congressional record by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (Texas) as part of a successful campaign against turning low-income, Mexican American communities along the Texas-Mexico border into nuclear waste dumping grounds.
Lourdes is one of 1000 performers in the world profiled in the 2000 Music Hound World Essential Album Guide (in which her second CD, Vestigios, was given 4 1/2 stars) and she is featured in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (Oxford Press, 2005). This December 4, 2006 Lourdes Pérez became one of the first 50 artists to be named as a United States Artists Fellow and was awarded a $50,000 unrestricted grant in honor of her contribution to Music. (http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/Public/USAFellows/index. cfm). This fellowship recognizes the “finest living artists in the country” and Lourdes was one of 5 musicians to receive the honor at the Lincoln Center. Also in 2006, her song, Paloma Urbana (Urban Dove) won Best Latin Song in the Just Plain Folks Music Awards.
Her discography includes 7 CDs, a full length film score, a short film score, 2 modern dance scores, a theater score and numerous individual tributes, while several of her songs appear in films, compilations and anthologies. The contemporary Puerto Rican trova group, Somos Tres (featuring her youngest sister Miriam Perez as lead vocalist), has recorded and interpreted Lourdes’ music (http://www.somostres.com).
Currently living and writing in Arizona and Texas, Lourdes has several projects in the oven to be released in 2007 and 2008.
- Jennifer Davis
JUST ANNOUNCED: Paloma Urbana from the CD, Selections from Tres Oraciones AWARDED BEST LATIN SONG
Click here to download it free!-- urban dove