Chilean soprano Ana-Maria Miranda is singing some songs known to the court of the Sixteenth century Spanish king Charles V. One of these I have sung in a small student choir we had at university. Ana-Maria Miranda is a bit of a curiosity: a classical soprano that was also active in the armed resistance movement in Chile.
Miranda was working for the Salvador Allende government before the military coup in 1973. The coup was staged by the CIA to topple the Marxist government of Allende. Miranda left the country, moving to France. It was during these exile years that she made this record.
In 1978 she returned to Chile, joining the armed resistance. She was fighting the government of Augusto Pinochet, and dedicating a record to the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, a guerrilla organisation. Even curiouser is that after the end of the Pinochet junta she now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.