BY PETER GOODMAN
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER

Mariana Montalvo fled to France from her native Chile in 1974 with her parents after Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende in a U.S-backed coup. She made a comfortable life for herself in Europe as a singer and songwriter, and although she has been back to Chile many times since Pinochet lost power in 1990, she does not think she'd ever move back.

"I make a kind of music that is not very appreciated there," Montalvo said in a recent phone interview from her home in Paris. "It is very difficult to earn your living as a musician there."

But she's about to start her first U.S. tour, and she's feeling "scared and excited," she said. "I'm sure there would be an audience for my music like in Europe ... I think the audience would be gente curiosa, people with curiosity."

That's what Putumayo, a company specializing in world music, is betting on in producing its first national tour, Latinas: Women of Latin America. Besides the Chilean Montalvo, the program includes Totó la Momposina from an island in Colombia's Cartagena River and the Brazilian Bel" Velloso, niece of musicians Caetano Veloso and Maria Bethânia.

There are four performances scheduled in the metropolitan area, including Sunday at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center and Oct. 15 at Tilles Center's Hillwood Recital Hall on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville.

Following the New York appearances, the tour heads south, then to the West Coast.

"This is the first kind of large-scale thematic tour we've done across the country," Putumayo founder and president (and former Great Neck resident) Dan Storper said. "We thought that in some ways these three represent one of the best cross sections of Latin-American music."

Montalvo, he said, represents singer-songwriters, with some political overtones. "My songs are not political," Montalvo protested when asked. "I have some songs that talk about Latin America's problems, but not in an obvious manner. There is always a poetical way to say these things."

Velloso, Storper said, sings one of his favorite Brazilian songs, "Todo Sexta- Feira" ("Every Friday"). And Momposina, who hails from an area with a strong blend of American Indian and African cultures, has a more Afro- Caribbean or Afro-Latin sound.

WHEN&WHEREPutumayo's Latinas: Women of Latin America, 8 p.m. Sunday at Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, 76 Main St., $40-$65; 631-288-1500 or www.whbpac.org.

Oct. 15, 8 p.m. Hillwood Recital Hall, Tilles Center, C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, Route 25A, Brookville, $40; 516-299-3100 or www.tillescenter.org.