Upon graduation, Valladares taught briefly before moving to Paris in the early 1950s and forming a music duo with María Elena Walsh. They sang traditional Argentine folk music for four years in cafés and cabarets. They returned to Argentina after the 1956 Liberating Revolution had removed Juan Perón from office. There was little appreciation of folk music in Argentina at the time, and though they continued to perform and release albums, their audiences were limited. The two women split up in 1962 and Valladares embarked on a career documenting the folk music traditions of Argentina. Her work between 1960 and 1974 produced a documentary series of albums, "Mapa musical de la argentina" (Musical Map of Argentina), which recorded and preserved folk music throughout the country's varied regions.