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Meet Eugenia Méndez of Aventura

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eugenia Méndez

Eugenia, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am Eugenia Méndez, a passionate jazz and popular singer, pianist, and music educator with deep roots in Venezuela and Latin America, and a love for jazz. For years, I have dedicated my life to expressing my artistic concepts, ideas, and cultural heritage through music performance and education, and in recent years, also through musical storytelling.
I started my musical career as a singer, pianist, performer, arranger, and producer of my own albums and concerts in Venezuela after studying in my native city, Caracas, and then in Austria and Germany. I produced and co-produced four music albums: “Afinidades”, “Embrase-moi”, “Inner Rhythm”, and “Mirando al Sur”. Recently, I produced a musical story in the form of an illustrated book and its audiobook, Sale el Sol, which subtly introduces meditation and mindfulness, practices I have embraced since my teenage years.
I emigrated with my husband to Miami from Venezuela, knowing it was the ideal city to fulfill our professional and personal dreams due to its multicultural nature. We are in Miami thanks to an educational project in the city of Doral that later evolved into our own project in Aventura, north of Miami-Dade, where we have resided since we arrived.
Our project, Kalos Music & Art School, was founded as a hub of talent to educate the young and adults in our community in the musical and visual arts, through both educational programs and methodologies developed by us, and artistic concerts at our venue. On August 16, 2024, Kalos Music & Art School will celebrate its twelfth anniversary, proud to have stood strong and strengthened after the 2020 pandemic.
During and after the pandemic, my creativity expanded significantly. Stories, poems, piano music, songs, compositions for various instruments, and meditations were the products of a moment of chaotic stillness. After several years almost entirely dedicated to education, I felt the need to create new music and ways to bring it to the tender ears of the youngest, but in the form of “serious” music, or inspired by the forms of academic music, to also captivate listeners of all ages. To make this possible, I founded Creaturas d’Eugenia to enable the publication and dissemination of this material.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t think “easy”, “smooth” or “hard” can describe a life experience. While you are pursuing and performing your mission, it is just a matter of consistency and concentration, and the experience of daily or specific time term results is the satisfaction and happiness of your dedication. For me, life and happiness is a continuum.

Regarding immigration, the challenge is to adapt with a smile on your face and in your soul to the new culture of business, economic, social, and political concepts. But isn’t life always about adapting to new ways of living?

When we decided to leave Venezuela, we thought: “What is the difference between the uncertainty of living in a country where all personal and professional securities are uncertain, and living in a new country that offers the uncertainty of success but the certainty of personal security? Which uncertainty do we prefer to live with?” So, we chose the latter.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a professional pianist, with classical and jazz music education, graduated from Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts. I have also general education in vocal performing. I have been singing since I was 16 years old from rock, to popular latin american music to Jazz standards, which I love deeply.

I am very proud of my achievements in music education as a teacher and director of www.kalosmusicandart.com in Aventura, Florida. My journey in this regard began long before my arrival in Miami, back when I was living in my hometown of Caracas. I’ve been teaching for many years, and when my husband and I moved to Miami, it felt like the natural thing to continue doing, in addition to performing.

I produced four albums and a musical storytelling book and audiobook. I consider each of these works my children and I am very proud of them all. Above all, I am incredibly grateful, passionate, and proud of my album “Mirando al Sur”. I invite you to listen in all music digital platforms. (https://spoti.fi/3Wp3bn7). And of course, I am so happy with my “Sale el Sol”, it is about of beauty, inner calm, and an encounter with the inner child on every adult: www.eugeniamendez.com/shop .

After meditating every day, one of the things I love most in life is singing. Being on stage transports me to another plane; it’s like meditation in action. I feel that my mission as a performing artist is to convey the joy that fills me every time I am in front of an audience. As a music artist and creator, I also aim to highlight and disseminate specific music genres that are rapidly losing favor to more modern concepts. This is why I am dedicated to composing new original pieces for children and families, to further their musical education, listening skills, and broaden their musical horizons.

Playing my compositions live at concerts, some for solo piano and others for voice and piano, is my greatest desire.
In recent years, I have been performing concerts with the support of Music in Miami, www.musicinmiami.net, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing live music of various genres, especially Classical, Jazz, and World Music, to different communities in Miami.

Currently, I am working on several projects simultaneously, as new musical stories, musical poems, music compositions for piano, piano and voice, and several instruments www.eugeniamendez.com .
Also, I am working in “OBRA PARLANTE,” a multidisciplinary interaction project between my music and the visual art of Gustavo Méndez-Liska (www.gustavomendezliska.art). We produce concerts with live visual artwork. Recently, On May 10, 2024, we held a live concert at the São Mamede Gallery in Porto, Portugal (https://www.saomamede.com), to document this artistic event on video.

Every artist is special and unique. My uniqueness is based on my multicultural point of view in music:
– I was born in Caracas-Venezuela, which origin comes from the cultural melt pot of Afro, Indigenous, European cultures.
– I studied in Caracas with Venezuelan teachers and professors that have been graduated from American Music Universities.
– I finish my professional studies in Germany after being in Vienna for piano technique and classical training.
– I sing Jazz and World music arrange by me and influenced by Afro Venezuelan, Indigenous, and center European rhythms and melodies.
– I compose music for piano influenced by academic musical structures.
– I compose songs following my favorite American and European singers and jazz performers from the 60s and later.

I sing, play, compose, create, write, produce, perform, educate… And I wish more, every day more… and all of these makes me HAPPY!!!

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
My perseverance, my daily joy, concentration, focus on my goals, adaptability, my adventurous spirit.

Daily meditation.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Vera Franceschi
Natalia Kalinka Agostini
Album Cover Design: Lennyn Salinas
Sale el Sol illustrations on album and book cover: Vanessa Balleza

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