Director (and cook)

Carolina Conde is the Director and cook of El pequeño artista. She has attended culinary programs around the world, taught Latin American cooking classes in Japan (where she lived for nearly 5 years), and been running a private cooking club, El Menú, since 2002.

Professionally, Carolina Conde is the founding editor of the Spanish-language Book Club Mosaico. In connection with this achievement, she received the "Outstanding Latina of the Year Award" in 2003 from El Diario, the #1 Spanish-language Newspaper in New York City. Previous to her work with Mosaico, she ran Leo, Scholastic's Bilingual Children's Book Club. Carolina holds a Master's Degree in Bilingual Education, from Columbia University and has two young boys, to whom she dedicates this arts center.

Spanish Immersion -- Teacher Coordinator

Edith Villanueva is a certified teacher who also received training in Colegio Montessori Xiadani in Mexico City. She has been teaching Spanish to very young children, as well as Spanish as a second language to older students since 1998. Edith has recently become teacher coordinator at EPA!

Art & Puppetry

Elisa Hevia has extensive experience teaching the art of puppetry. She has a degree in sculpture from the prestigious Armando Reverón Institute in Caracas, Venezuela. For four years, she designed puppets and acted as a professional puppeteer at the famous Naku Puppet Theater in Caracas. In NYC Elisa has collaborated with Eva Lansberry at the Labapalooza Puppet Festival, and Jane Catherine Shaw in the plays The Lone Runner and The Universe Expanding.

Musica Para Mi

Graciela Carriquí received her Orff Method Certification, Level 1 (early childhood music pedagogy) from the Bloomingdale School of Music in NYC, and holds a certificate from the Center for Music and Young Children in Princeton, New Jersey, for the successful completion of advanced training. She has extensive experience teaching early childhood music programs in NYC. As a professional musician and singer, Graciela was the musical director of salsa greats Willie Colón and Ruben Blades in the early 1980's, with whom she toured and recorded, and appeared on numerous TV and radio programs. Visit her website at www.musicaparami.com

Percussion

Neil Ochoa is originally from Caracas, Venezuela and has studied beats from Rock to Afro-Venezuelan & Afro-Cuban rhythms. As a result, Neil's first and second band both strived to create music integrating different cadences. Neil has performed with Ricky Martin, Los Aterciopelados (Grammy Award winning Rock en Espanol Band), etc. Neil has lived in New York since 1995 and is the percussionist for "Si*Se", which released their first album in 2001. Neil lives in Windsor Terrace and has two young sons.

Ballet

Lucia Campoy has a degree in classical ballet and music from Escuela Superior de Arte Dramatico y Danza in Murcia, Spain. She has danced professionally throughout Europe and has been teaching children of all ages for many years in NYC.