Draft:Maura Mendoza

Maura Mendoza [maw-rah muhn-dow-zuh] was born as Maura Sofia Mendoza Ricord in San Salvador, El Salvador. Since early years she showed inclinations to performing arts and enrolled in various community theater in her city such as Sol del Rio a theater company with recently graduated students from Russia. Mendoza was born in a civil war era that lasted eleven years in El Salvador. In 2002 she was awarded to a scholarship to studied in the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television de San Antonio de los Baños in Havana, Cuba. In 2005 she moves to Mexico City to pursue studies in musical theater in the Centro de Capacitacion del Teatro Pedregal, Cecaap. In 2008 she moves to Gaithersburg, Maryland and started to write her own musical material to launch a solo album in 2001 called ViVA! an EP with songs that explore rock, acoustic, reggae and bossa. Maura has work tirelessly to use arts as a successful family engagement schools in Somerville, MA, located in the greater Boston area. Maura performs and create repertoire for immigrant families with young children in her shows: "Ding-Dong Quien Es? Playing and Learning Latin Rhythms" and Musifiestas! After working more than a decated in education, she recently got a position of Arts Administrator for the Cambridge Arts Council in the city that she has lived for the last fifteen years. She is finishing the production of her latest album: Be the Change, with songs she created with immigrant families with young children in the public school sector.