Marghreta Cordero

ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEW MEXICO

Contributions to IDEA:
New Mexico 1

Bio: Marghreta Cordero has been around. Born in Chicago, raised in the tiny border town of La Union, New Mexico, years spent in New York City, she is now settled back in the Santa Fe area. As a child she had a speech impediment. It was through singing, speech and debate classes that she helped herself to work through this impediment. Her musical history is just as varied: she grew up singing Mexican rancheras, played in alternative rock bands, made dance records for the club crowd, and toured with the composer Robert Ashley in his avant-garde operas and is known for being his great libretto translator for the opera Now Eleanor's Idea. (about the Low Rider car culture in New Mexico.) Finally it was time for Cordero to forge a unique sound. Her stage moniker is Nacha Mendez and she has several recordings out.

Cordero has studied classical voice, Flamenco guitar and electronic music. Although she did not continue with her studies in the Journalism department at New Mexico State University she held down a 20-year radio broadcasting career working as an on air host and production director at KIOT, KBAC, KVSF in New Mexico and WBAI in New York.

As a freelance dialect coach and translator, she has worked on numerous projects for both film and theater. A few of her voice-over and dialect coaching credits listed here include:

Robert Ashley Opera Company-Casting director, librettist, dialect coach and principal singer for Ashley’s opera Now Eleanor's Idea,  an opera about the Lowrider car culture in New Mexico. Santa Fe/New York.

Wise Fool, New Mexico: Coached actor in border Mexican dialect for performance of Baggage, a play about domestic violence in New Mexico. She also wrote the music for this production. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Voice-over work for the documentary Mother O'Keeffe (Cine Video, Santa Fe New Mexico).

Voice-over campaign ads in Spanish for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson early on in his political career (Santa Fe, New Mexico).

She has also coached non-Spanish speaking local singer/performers preparing for performances that have included Spanish songs in their repertoire.

Studio monitor and dialect coach in the Talking Books Department. The American Foundation for the Blind in New York City. Specific only to books about the Southwest.

A frequent collaborator, she has worked on radio art and music projects with composer Steve Peters. She has also collaborated with writer Melody Sumner Carnahan, and filmmaker Catherine Gund of Aubin Pictures.

Among the many awards that Cordero has received is a National Endowment for the Arts award for music composition, an Associated Press award for her radio documentary about water issues in New Mexico, and a fellowship from Mutable Music in NYC.

Contact: magalavaga@hotmail.com