"The Garden is My Stage" by Vocalist and HGTV Landscape Designer MAYITA DINOS

After a decades-long career as a landscape designer,  MAYITA DINOS is now releasing her debut CD, THE GARDEN IS MY STAGE. It’s not that she hasn’t been singing in public for many years, but the stars finally aligned with the opportunity to record her silky, warm, and highly appealing voice. Dinos’ approach to music, the arts, and life in general is the product of her mixed heritage. She was born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother and a father of Greek and Turkish ancestry.

Music has always been part of her life, and she fondly remembers singing with her grandmother, who taught her songs in Spanish. “I loved singing with my grandmother,” says Dinos. “But she was strict. I couldn’t just sing a song. She made sure I was singing it with feeling.” Dinos is also a successful landscape designer specializing in sustainable landscape design, which requires more than just a knowledge of horticulture. A beautiful garden is like a lush symphony composed of colors, shapes, and textures. Dinos’ lovely work attracted the interest of a television producer, and she spent the next five years as a landscape expert on various shows on the HGTV and DIY networks. 

Mentored by Los Angeles music legend Howlett Smith, Dinos has been performing in jazz venues for many years before the opportunity presented itself to make this recording. Each of the songs that Dinos chose relates to the natural world and the music she hears in it. Dinos created gorgeous, evocative composite art for each song, included in the booklet accompanying the CD package. Listeners can enjoy the florid images while taking in her dulcet and smoky voice through which she expresses her introspective nature and the profundity of her attachment to the natural world. THE GARDEN IS MY STAGE is the fruition of a project by an artist fully engaged with the sounds and sights and textures of our beautiful world.

Personnel
MAYITA DINOS  vocals
BILL CANTOS  piano
RICH EAMES  piano
GABE DAVIS  acoustic  bass
HUSSAIN JIFFRY  electric bass
DORI AMARILIO  guitar
MICHAEL HUNTER  trumpet & flugelhorn
ALEX BUDMAN  flute, clarinet, soprano sax
STEVE HASS  drums
TIKI PASILLAS  drums & percussion