BIO:
Maria Staump is a 23 year old composer, educator, performer, ASCAP publisher, and business owner in San Diego, California. She is always finding new ways to grow and challenge herself as a composer and business owner. She teaches private music lessons out of her project studio in Santee. She has established The Maria Staump Band, and also performs with a cover band. She performs regularly as a solo artist at local restaurants and businesses around town. Her passion is composition. She records and performs all of her own music, but what she writes is created for others to perform. She sings only to make the composition heard, but all her singer/songwriter music is intended for someone else to sing. She is always looking for other ASCAP artists to collaborate with. If you are interested in working with Maria Staump, or you would like to begin music lessons, please contact her at 619-212-6656, or via email maria@staump.com.

Past:
Maria Staump was born in England on March 11, 1986. She comes from a family of 6. Her dad serves in the Unites States Air Force, and her mom is an immigrant from Helsingborg, Sweden. She grew up in a fairly musical home. Her Dad played the piano and saxophone and her Mom was always writing lyrics. One of her sisters played saxophone and piano, the other loved to sing, and her brother played the drums. She learned her first song on the piano when she was 4 years old, and has been hooked ever since. She was influenced by a wide variety of musicals styles growing up, from Pink Floyd, Queen, Nirvana, Alanis Morrsette, Green Day, Faith No more, Motley Cure, and Areosmith, to Motown, Simon and Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, and John William's film scores.

Maria's parents noticed her love for music right away, but financial hardships always made it difficult to get music lessons. She was able to take piano lessons off and on over the years, and she also participated in the music programs at school. In 5th grade she decided to start playing the saxophone in the school band. She was always looking for a challenge musically, and by the time she reached junior high she had already begun learning the trumpet and the violin as well. In Junior High Maria served as the Drum Major for the school's marching band. She conducted the ensemble in several performances, and she lead the band in the Mother Goose Parade. In the summer following 8th grade, she had the opportunity to march Drum Corps, where she played the mellophone.

Maria went to West Hills High School in Santee, California. She played trumpet and trombone in the high school band, and participated in the school's drumline and choir. On the way to her first day of sophomore year, she was in a severe car accident. After being rushed to the hospital, she found out that she would need immediate surgery. Her injuries prevented her from being able to play any music for months. She was bed ridden for several weeks, and even after she was able to move around, she was not able to play any instruments due to the pain it caused her. One evening at a school event her mom entered her into a raffle contest. She actually won a Big Baby Taylor Guitar that night! She enrolled in the West Hills guitar program shortly after winning the guitar, and she quickly discovered that not only was this instrument less painful to play, but it was also one of her favorite. Maria was also involved in the San Diego youth Symphony, where she played violin and viola. She had the opportunity to perform at various charity events as well as at the Copley Symphony Hall in Downtown San Diego on several occasions.

Up to this point, Maria had worked at various retail jobs, but in 2004 she began to teach privately. She discovered that she loved to teach, and worked on gaining more students. She graduated high school and started attending Grossmont College in the fall of 2004. She declared herself  a music major and started to take the classes required for that major. While at Grossmont, she studied privately from George Svoboda and Fred Beneditti. Mr. Benedetti was one of the first instructors to ask her to compose a song. Little did she know that this one assignment would unravel a passion within her that she had not yet discovered. From that assignment she wrote "Mi Vida Bonita". The Grossmont Guitar Ensemble performed this piece at one of their yearly concerts. Maria began writing more instrumental music, and in 2007 she finished her first album "Mi Vida Bonita." She has since sold over 500 copies of this instrumental album. In 2007 she graduated from Grossomont College with a degree in Music and married Drummer Tim Staump on November 3, 2007.

Maria's first public performance showcasing both her instrumental and singer/songwriter compositions was held at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood. On February 14th, she performed her Valentine's Day show "It's Better To Love," and officially released her instrumental album "Mi Vida Bonita". Having the chance to perform at the Whisky for her very first show ever was exciting and nerve racking. Only four days before the show she actually lost her voice completely! When she arrived at the Whisky on Valentine's Day, all she could do was pray that her voice would cooperate. Everything worked out great, and she was even invited back a week later for the Whisky's legendary "No Bozo" night. She still maintains a great relationship with the Whisky, and loves going back up to LA to play whenever she can.

Maria has received press from San Diego's Downtown Newspaper, and has been featured as an up and coming San Diego composer in Express Jet Magazine, which was viewed worldwide by Express Jet travelers. In 2008, she was ranked number one on the Myspace charts for Flamenco, and has since maintained top chart positions. She was recently one of the 1000 picked from over 400,000 independent artists on Reverbnation.com to participate in a Microsoft giveaway. This giveaway enabled independent artists to get paid every time someone downloaded their song for free off of myspace.com/windows. Her single, "Mi Vida Bonita," was downloaded over 1200 times during the 3 month giveaway. Microsoft also started a contest to select only 10 videos out of 1000 to help promote this giveaway. Maria's jingle was selected by Microsoft as a featured video on their Youtube's front page.

In January of 2009, Maria moved her teaching business/project studio into her first commercial building. Over the past year she grown to over fifty students every week. Her students range in age from 3 to 50. Her students have performed shows at the San Diego County Fair as well as other local businesses throughout East County. Maria has a great passion for the importance of music education. She has seen the many benefits it has brought to her life, and is so grateful she can share her passion and knowledge with others in the community.

Note from Maria:

Thanks so much for listening to my music! I hope to see you around San Diego. Take care =)