The Great Woman Singer: Gender and Voice in Puerto Rican Music

 Licia Fiol-Matta ’86 traces the careers of four Iconic Puerto Rican singers — Myrta Silva, Ruth Fernández, Ernestina Reyes, and Lucecita Benítez — to explore how their voices and performance style transform the possibilities for the woman singer. The Great Woman Singer (Duke University Press) shows how these musicians, despite demands to represent gender norms, challenged expectations of how they should look, sound, and act.