13 Facts About Chabuca Granda

Maria Isabel Granda Larco, better known as Chabuca Granda, was a Peruvian singer and composer.

Chabuca Granda created and interpreted a vast number of Criollo waltzes with Afro-Peruvian rhythms.

Chabuca Granda has influenced various Peruvian artists such as Susana Baca, Eva Ayllon, Gian Marco and Juan Diego Florez.

Chabuca Granda was born on 3 September 1920, in a copper mining area in the region of Apurimac.

Chabuca Granda began singing at 12 years old, in the school choir at the exclusive girls' school Colegio Sophianum, in San Isidro, an affluent neighborhood of Lima, Peru.

Chabuca Granda discovered, and was inspired by, Conny Mendez a Venezuelan composer who sang to her country and to nature.

Chabuca Granda broke the conventional rhythmic structure of the waltz, later broke convention with her poetic cadences as well.

Towards the end of her career, Chabuca Granda incorporated Afro-Peruvian rhythms into her work.

Chabuca Granda masterfully blended the suggestive and colorful rhythms into her work, enriching Peruvian popular music.

Chabuca Granda died of heart problems in a clinic in Fort Lauderdale, in the United States, in 1983.

Chabuca Granda continued to make her presence felt a decade after her death, when Caetano Veloso used her song, "Fina estampa", as the title track of an album released in 1994, while her song, "Maria Lando", written with Cesar Calvo, provided the North American breakthrough for Peruvian vocalist Susana Baca the following year.

Chabuca Granda worked with several influential guitarists including Oscar Aviles, Lucho Garland, Lucho Gonzalez, Alvaro Lagos, and Felix Casaverde.

In 2021, the Central Reserve Bank of Peru honored Chabuca Granda by featuring her on the country's 10 Peruvian sol banknote, in honor of Chabuca Granda's legacy and in recognition of the country's bicentennial.