A Spanish author with a calling to share the best music of all time
with audiences of all ages.
I AM A WRITER, ILLUSTRATOR AND EDUCATOR willing to enlighten your life with the best music of all time. Music has helped me all along my life. Since I was a teenager I felt the need of sharing the powerful experience of listening to classical music. To know about my education & academics you can see my LinkedIn profile, but allow me to introduce myself in a more personal way here.
SINCE 1996 I’ve walked the fulfilling path of my mission and I have reached thousands of children in Spain and many other Spanish speaking countries. More than 30 titles of mine were published and I have been an entrepreneur Transmedia author for many years without even knowing it. That made me skillful in many senses though I am sorry I wasn’t able to properly finance most of my projects.
IN THIS BIO UP TO 2020, I feel happy to bring the highlights of my life as an author as a photo-album. They are still inspiring to me today to face new challenges, to find new ways…
GEORGINA’S AUTHOR ALBUM (1996-2020)
I was born in Barcelona (Spain) in 1962. In 1996 I started telling my own stories to my son Manuel in this first room of his. I had painted the walls to feel like in a garden…
1998, Ezcaray – La Rioja (Spain). Here I am telling my son the first series of stories I wrote. We had just met our friend Mirlo who helped me find my voice to start writing my tales…
By 1999 I had already written and illustrated my first operas as tales, which Manuel could enjoy in the homely format that you can see in this photo…
In 1999, as Manuel was starting at school and I was invited to tell my stories there, at the Lycée Français. These are the letters from some of the participants in one of my most successful workshops. I enjoyed so much sharing with other children my operas as tales! Then I realized I had to try to publish them…
That year 1999 couldn’t end better, with two illustrations of mine for “Samson et Dalila” published in the Program booklet of Teatro Real (in Madrid)…
2000-2004, my “SONY years”. After insistently looking for a publisher, and when I was starting thinking of self-publishing some titles for my workshops, I got a wonderful offer from Sony Classical Spain. For two years, I worked in new titles to complete a collection of 18 CDs… There was also an Italian edition, and later a Mexican one. There were interviews and reviews in National Televisions and Radio stations… Those were crazy times!
2000-2007, Teacher and Educator. The Sony edition led naturally to many activities in libraries, schools and bookshops. I enjoyed a lot telling my stories, playing in several workshops and offering talks for teachers.
But those years (still in Barcelona, until 2007) were also full of really important personal experiences with my father, my son and his friends… and my singing lessons. Those were actually inspiring years for new writings to come…
In 2005, after Sony Classical Spain dropped “Cuéntame una Ópera”, despite its international success, I decided I couldn’t let down all those followers interested in discovering opera through my tales and I launched the web http://www.cuentameunaopera.com with the support of Naxos Deutschland GmbH. There I could share my tales and also games, education tools and I had the chance of interviewing some great artists like Teresa Berganza, Maestro Noseda…
In 2006 I was still in Barcelona and I started selling my first self-published Cd-books in my web. This brings me the memories of getting crazy as I had to design and edit everything on my own. I became friends with the QuarkXpress program after more than one nervous breakdown… and by the way I also learned how to edit music!
In 2006, I started an online contest “Concurso CUÉNTAME UNA ÓPERA” proposing to primary school children the illustration of an opera. The contest took place for seven years in a row. I recall those times when I received hundreds of wonderful drawings from different schools and the moving gratefulness of the teachers. I was really sad to give up, but I had to take care of everything on my own, and I wasn’t able to go on with all the workload as well as financing all the organization.
2008-2010. In December 2007 I moved to Madrid where I decided to register my publishing seal and start growing the catalog of my humble self-published editions. Now I realize that in about two years I designed, edited and published 9 new titles and a game with their Cds. I also published several articles and educational pages in magazines such as Música y Educación and BRIOClásica… This time my husband was by my side working with me as manager of our new business project MIRLOideas.
2010-2014. As we were looking for a distributor for our little seal, a publisher in Madrid, Ciudadela Libros, offered me an interesting deal for my collection Cuéntame una Ópera. I worked in the new edition for three years, launching 9 titles as books+Cds, and I was welcome at the International Book Fair of Madrid /”Feria del Libro de Madrid” for four years. It was such a wonderful experience to meet my young readers, teachers, librarians!
At Christmas 2011, “Feliz Navidad con… Merry Christmas with… Joaquín Rodrigo”, a very special book+Cd, was published by Victoria & Joaquín Rodrigo Foundation. It was a family project, and I was honored to present my work with Maestro Rodrigo’s daughter and granddaughter in several showcase-concerts where I was the narrator.
2011-2012 was also the year for two wonderful courses for Primary School Teachers and for Animators at the official schools of Madrid. It was also time to contribute to a stage production of Saint-Saëns “Carnival of the Animals” with a pedagogical script. I also remember I participated in the Museo Thyssen Congress of Museums and Education with a video-conference.
2013 & 2014. I helped my son in the management of a series of charity concerts to collect donations for soup kitchens in Madrid. We offered 8 concerts in two seasons… Here are some pictures of the first season, where I was the presenter. I had to bring here these wonderful moments, so enriching in so many ways!
Christmas 2013. “Merry Christmas with Joaquín Rodrigo” was premiered as a family musical play at Conde Duque Theater in Madrid. In the middle of the season celebrations, the intimacy of the story along with the sensible music of Maestro Rodrigo deserved a surprising success and I felt really moved when I was called on stage.
2014 was a year full of contrasts. Personally, it was a hard year: I had to sell my apartment in Barcelona and find a new home in Madrid. Considering Manuel was starting College, I decided to look for a place suitable to host House Concerts, workshops, storytelling… and this is where I settled down. In January 2015 I presented my first House Concert, while I was launching many other activities.
2015 was the year I started Música en Casa in my living-room. I lead 7 workshops for families and hosted 3 House Concerts, and I opened the doors of my house twice to present my programs… Unfortunately, my project in the living-room didn’t work and in Fall I had to stop all the programs for the next year. Nevertheless…
I didn’t bring here the unfinished projects and some failures and disappointments I experienced as an author. Let’s face it, my calling is not so easy to follow on my own and I never found the proper partner. But thank the Internet I am fairly optimistic. Since 2010 I have been managing my Facebook profile and page and I also learned video-editing, online teaching…
2016 was an intense year. I improved my editing skills -publishing 3 books, an online course, a few videos, etc.- and I took my time to learn how to face the next steps for my Transmedia project… I refreshed my social media and youtube channel and in January 2017, I uploaded my 3 minutes video-résumé an overview of my work during these past 20 years, as a wrap up, because…
… in 2017, I started a transition time, after discovering Blockchain technology, which I found fascinatin and with the potential to change authors appreciation in the future. Nevertheless, that year I still published a book “Cancionero de Mirlo”,and I tried to focus on finishing the world and story of the transmedia I had been working on for a few years now, under the hood.
2018 was the actual turning point for me as a writer and illustrator. I had to face the challenge of giving up some old customs, and finally embrace new technologies. I tried to share my process with my audience on social media for a better farewell.
I continued my personal research on Blockchain technology and Smart Contracts. I took coding courses (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and I started considering to build a project to open new space for creators like me, willing to collaborate, communicate and exchange in a more direct way. My natural curiosity was fuelled when attending several meetings in New York (CryptoCreators, New Art Academy…), and Ithaca-NY (TEDx Cornell). I traveled to the U.S. in Spring as my son was graduating. It was an intense time indeed!
2019 was the year I took to focus on learning to better see if I could bring a solution for authors on the blockchain. As an author myself I started by reflecting on my own experiences throughout the years, I also studied what was being done… I worked on an idea of DApp and I met quite a few communities of developers in Madrid.
I was actually looking to build my ‘solution’ on Blockstack, a unique ecosystem committed to defend the fundamental rights of users, which was the bet for my idea. I Joined the Blockstack community in July and became Blockstack Ambassador in Madrid… It was especially engaging to meet all those engineers and developers committed to fix the problems of the present Internet. Knowing about surveillance and behaviour manipulation by the technological giants became a real concern for me as an educator. The year ended with promising news for my project of DApp (Decentralized App) as well as for my activity as Blockstack Ambassador bringing awareness on Fundamental rights and the need to switch to use the new DApps to build a more respectful web3.
Blockstack Ambassador at Open Source Weekend. Madrid , Oct. 2019
Of course, many personal matters are strongly related to the “highlights” in this special auto-bio, and many were the source of projects which were never published… I actually managed to write and illustrate many other stories along the way that I hope to be able to share someday.
2020 was the year I shaped the idea and designed the first prototype of Smartists, as well as the Licensing system that should be implemented in the future App.
I also kept active in the Blockstack community, now Stacks. In the summer I attended the Kernel program, and by the end of the year I witnessed the arrival of Stacks 2.0, an exciting moment which I lived while translating the White Paper to Spanish. Moreover, I had the chance to support a new project, Mirlo Studio, founded and led by a young musician, Manuel Gimferrer, where the titles of my collection “Cuéntame una Ópera” is going to be published in digital format, as Flipbooks, for the first time.
2021 – NEW WEBSITE for an author 3.0
Georgina García-mauriño 