Nacha Mendez Live in the Rose Chapel!

This will be a BYOB show, with complimentary beverages available while supplies last. As nearly always, there will be a jam session after the show, so instruments are welcome!

Nacha Mendez (also known as Margarita Cordero) grew up in the tiny border town of La Union, in southern New Mexico, where she began singing and playing the guitar at an early age. 

She is an enrolled member of the Chihene Nde Apache Nation and is of Mexican heritage. 

She has studied acting, classical voice and music before moving to New York City in the mid 80’s, where she studied flamenco guitar with Manuel Granados of the Music Conservatory of Barcelona, Spain. In the early ’90s, she was a principal singer in Robert Ashley’s opera company, touring Europe and Japan.

Since 1990, she has worked on several projects with composer Steve Peters and has collaborated with writer Melody Sumner Carnahan, with Pulitzer Prize winning Native American composer Raven Chacon and visual artist Harmony Hammond. She also worked on the documentary Chavela with filmmaker Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi.

Nacha is a nationally recognized artist who received a National Endowment for the Arts Award. She was honored by the New Mexico Committee of the National Museum of Women Artists. In 2018 she received the New Mexico Platinum Lifetime achievement award. She is the Executive director of the Nacha Mendez Music Scholarship.

She has performed in Tuscany, Madrid and Granada, London, Athens and Lisbon, Mexico City, Sonora Mexico, as well as many cities in the USA.

Mendez is currently based in Santa Fe New Mexico and often travels abroad for work and pleasure.