Musica del alma

After the U.S.-backed coup in Chile put Pinochet into power in 1973, singer Mariana Montalvo's family -- who were outspoken against the military dictator -- went into exile in Europe a few months later.

Though she's been in France for her entire musical career, Montalvo says her heart has never really left Chile.

"I've lived less than half of my life in Chile," the 51-year-old folk-pop singer says from her Paris home, "so, the clay that I'm made of came from Chile, but it was cooked in Europe."

To that effect, like many transplanted artists, Montalvo, an unknown outside of Europe and South America, has taken the music that she grew up with at home -- a pan-Latin mix of traditional, indigenous roots, tropical dance -- and absorbed the local influences to make a sort of world music nouveau. In 1999, the Manhattan-based boutique label Putumayo released a compilation of her work in "Cantos de mi alma" (Songs from My Soul) for a niche U.S. audience interested in world sounds.

And a few weeks ago, the label issued one of the best compilations of contemporary female Latin artists, "Latinas: Women of Latin America," which not only includes Montalvo, but Peru's Susana Baca, Mexican-American Lila Downs and Canadian chanteuse Lhasa. Montalvo joins Colombia's legendary Totó La Momposina and Brazilian singer Belô Velloso, niece of Brazilian pop giant Caetano Veloso, to represent the album on a U.S. tour with several area dates. The three perform tonight at 8 at New York's Symphony Space, tomorrow at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, and Saturday at the Gordon Theater at Rutgers University in Camden.

"Women have a larger sense of affection than men, mostly because we're obligated to carry men in our womb," she says. "What a better way to show our range as women than with a (sampling) of feminine voices of Latin America."

A student of Latin American feminist poetry and the folksy protest music (called nueva canción) that swept through the Americas during the '70s and '80s, when several Latin American countries had dictatorships, Montalvo has put music to poems that hold universal themes, such as liberty and equality.

"If you wanted me to write songs that say, 'I loved you, and you broke my heart,' I could do 25 of those in a week," Montalvo says. "I don't have anything against these pop songs, but in my own personal expression I need to go farther with my lyrics."

On her most recent album, "Piel de aceituna" (Olive Skin) (Harmonia Mundi, 2004), she interprets two poems by the late Chilean Nobel-laureate Gabriela Mistral and one by Argentinean Alphonsina Estorni. Influences like slain Chilean folk singer Victor Jara and singer-songwriter/activist Violeta Parra (author of the Latin American hymn "Gracias a la vida") are evident in her style, which appeals to fans of the great Mercedes Sosa.

"I'm not militant or a fanatic in any way, but obviously because of my background, my heart is with the left," she says. "I sang many protest songs early on, and during the dictatorship, I learned that music was the only place to find freedom. It was a time when you couldn't say 'red is red,' so you had to say it in another way."