Our guest this month on the Metropolitan Culture Corner is singer, songwriter and guitarist Carlos Mendoza. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, he has been a Barcelona resident for several decades. He moved here with the other members of one of his bands, a rock group called Luz Verde.
Since then, he has been nominated for a Latin Grammy for his work with them; they have released seven albums, and have legions of fans around the Spanish-speaking world, especially in Latin America. And for the past decade, Carlos has also been an integral part of rock and rumba band Alma de Boquerón, which started out as a fun bar band but has since grown to a six-piece powerhouse that regularly plays clubs and festivals. He’s equally at home on big stages as on small ones—or in an ER clinic, tending to a patient’s illness or injury. Yes, Grammy Nominee Carlos Mendoza is also a clinical immunologist, and is currently also getting a master’s degree in emergency medicine.
Last month, we interviewed Ukrainian artist Natalia Revoniuk. While she splits her time between Ukraine and the UK, she was just in Barcelona, exhibiting her work as a part of the 2024 Woman’s Essence international art showcase, where she was one of the recipients of the Woman Art Award, which highlights notable female visual artists from all over the world. Natalia was born in Lviv, Ukraine, and moved to the UK in 2022. Her world travels have taken her to 85 countries; she has carved a distinctive artistic path with her paintings that combine traditional painting with concepts ranging from the modern to the ancient, from graphic design to dot art similar to the Cucuteni-Trypillya people, and what she calls Transformational Energy Art and Visionary Art. She has had or participated in over 35 solo or group exhibitions in Italy, the UK, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Spain; Natalia is also the art curator of the platform Forum Ukraine.
Stay tuned to Metropolitan’s YouTube channel and social media to make sure you don’t miss a single episode of our monthly interview series! We’ve got a great lineup in store for you in 2024. You can also watch the full archive of previous interviews on our official YouTube channel, or listen to all the MCC interviews as free podcasts on Soundcloud. Be sure to follow Metropolitan on Facebook: @BCNMetropolitan, Twitter: @bcnmetropolitan and Instagram: @barcelonametropolitan.