Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (; 4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She pioneered the Nueva Canción Chilena (The Chilean New Song), a renewal and a reinvention of Chilean folk music that would extend its sphere of influence outside Chile. Her birthdate (4 October) was chosen "Chilean Musicians' Day". In 2011, Andrés Wood directed a biopic about her, titled Violeta Went to Heaven (Spanish: Violeta se fue a los cielos). Biography Early years There is some uncertainty as to exactly where Violeta Parra was born. The stamp on her birth certificate says she was born in San Carlos, Ñuble Province, a small town in southern Chile on 4 October 1917, as Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval. However, both the Violeta Parra Foundation (Fundación Violeta Parra) and the Violeta Parra Museum (Museo Violeta Parra) claim on their websites that she was born in San Fabián de Alico, near San Carlos. She was one of nine children in the poor, but prolific Parra family. Her father, Nicanor Parra Alarcón, was a music teacher. Her mother, Clarisa Sandoval Navarrete had grown up in the countryside and was a seamstress. She sang and played the guitar, and taught Violeta and her siblings traditional folk songs. Among her brothers were the notable modern poet, better known as the "anti-poet", Nicanor Parra (1914–2018), and fellow folklorist Roberto Parra (1921–1995). Her son, Ángel Parra, and her daughter, Isabel Parra, are also important figures in the development of the Nueva Canción Chilena. Their children have also mostly maintained the family's artistic traditions. Violeta Parra's family lived in poverty and was constantly moving throughout her childhood in search of work. Unemployment led her father to alcoholism. Two years after Violeta's birth, the family moved to Santiago, then, two years later, to Lautaro and, finally, in 1927, to Chillán. It was in Chillán that Violeta started singing and playing the guitar, together with her siblings Hilda, Eduardo and Roberto; and soon began composing traditional Chilean music. After Parra's father died in 1929, the life circumstances of her family greatly deteriorated. Violeta and her siblings had to work to help feed the family. In 1932, at the insistence of her brother Nicanor, Parra moved to Santiago to attend the Normal School, staying with relatives. Later, she moved back with her mother and siblings to Edison Street, in the Quinta Normal