We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anamaria De La Cruz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anamaria below.

Alright, Anamaria thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My path with Music has not been linear, but looking back, I’m grateful for the journey. I started performing when I was very young, and jumped in and took advantage of all of the lessons and performing opportunities I could in the field – piano, voice, tap, jazz, ballet, musical theatre, rock band, a cappella, choir, mariachi, studio work – and logged my 10,000 hours by @ age 15.

If there are some overarching skills I learned throughout that process, they were certainly about work ethic and being open to learning at every stage. The years I spent in musical theatre runs, for example, were grueling, but Ithey taught me a great deal about tenacity and consistency. And I certainly had teachers and choir directors, especially in the field of classical music, who were disciplinarians that rarely gave positive feedback, but I would say I learned from those experiences as much as I did from anything else.

I struggled most to find my way in Music when I graduated from college. I left college saddled with an enormous about of debt (I was raised by a single mother, and though I was granted a great deal of scholarships, I also took out loans to pay for college), and couldn’t see how I could find a career in Music post-college that would pay the bills. I begin teaching in Title 1 schools and worked with students who reminded me of myself when I was younger. I relegated Music to a secondary role, directing student performance groups outside of the classroom, and performing in musical theatre productions outside of my work hours, but even that work in Music did not feel like enough. It wasn’t until I became a mother and returned to complete a graduate degree in Music that I felt like I had found my way back home again.

Anamaria, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a singer, songwriter, educator, actor and producer. I knew from the time I was very young that I wanted to do this work. I was drawn to singers and performers from the time I could listen to records on my Fisher-Price record player, and I would play back the records I owned – Madonna, Prince, the soundtrack from ‘Annie’, the story of ‘The Black Stallion’, and some vintage record about a story called ‘Tina the Ballerina’ – over and over again, memorizing them, performing them, and knowing in some deep and profound way that this work of creating music and performing music was the thing I wanted to do.

My parents were long-term organizers with the United Farm Workers (UFW), and when I grew older, I grappled with the idea that writing or performing Music wasn’t as impactful as organizing work, but motherhood helped me to appreciate how important it is that we pursue what we love to do, and how pursuing the work we love creates joy for others as well.

This year I recorded, produced, and released my debut album ‘Gone’, which is primarily about my parents and my experience of losing them unexpectedly within 4 years of one another. Songwriting is some the most cathartic work I’ve done, and though I’ve always written and performed Music, I didn’t begin writing my own music until my mother passed away.

Like my background (Mexican/Irish/Catholic/Buddhist raised in Boston and California), my music doesn’t fit neatly into one genre, but is drawn primarily from folk, rock, pop and country influences.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I am most passionate about arts access and issues of equity within the Music industry, particularly as it pertains to women and women of color. I was a scholarship student at institutions that had very strong Arts programs (Milton Academy and Yale University), and I credit my training, and my career, to the opportunities I had to study the Music and the Performing Arts to the degree with which I did.

The field still remains grossly underrepresented by women women and women of color, particularly, and I know we can and need to do better to provide early access to high quality arts training and performance opportunities to communities that have been historically marginalized in this industry. Economics plays a huge part in this, and so I also consider funding artists and providing artists access to funding – to be able to make a living creating music – to play a significant role in ‘moving the needle.’

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

If I could say anything to my 20-something self, I would tell her that her experiences are valuable, and that when she feels preoccupied with the idea that she isn’t actively in the process of creating that thing she wants to create, that she is learning something that will return to her art and will help her in her career as an artist.

The many years I spent teaching in Title 1 schools, always with overwhelming expectations and limited resources, for example, taught me so many lessons that would help me to later successfully produce and release my album, such as: how to find support for projects, how to build community, how to manage teams, how to lead by example, how to meet deadlines, how to organize projects, how to secure funding, and how to draw out the best qualities and best work of the people around you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.anamariadelacruz.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/anamariadelacruz
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/anamariadelacruz
• Youtube: https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCoScFkXRVBjDlrLZP75QvQQ?si=2O6pSIAZ3asc9oK-
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/7BHZBZpn1gWeYMe29

Image Credits

Erika Carillo Lozano