Maria Cuccia was born in Astoria, Queens New York in 1960. Her family moved to Long Island in 1964 which is where she lived most of her life. She began studying piano at the age of seven, and for her 16 th birthday, her parents gave her the choice of a car or a grand piano. She chose the piano. Maria’s passion for playing the piano continued during her college years and she chose music education as her major with a minor in biology, while attending the University of Rhode Island.n 1982, Maria married a chiropractor and eventually gave birth to three daughters. In 1987, she launched a successful piano studio in her home where she was able to make a living by teaching piano to children and adults while remaining close to her three daughters on a daily basis. Life for Maria and her family was ordinary, until she experienced something extraordinary one night in 1992. She was suddenly awakened from her sleep at around 3:00 am. and sensed a strange energy penetrate her body. She felt as if she was being transported by a beam of light which carried her from her bed to what appeared to be a spacecraft. She found herself surrounded by non-human beings who instructed her to look outside the window, at a group of children. One of the boys stood gazing at her, and slowly waved his hand. The beings told her the boy was her son, and that his name was Elijah.Maria spoke about the experience often and desperately tried to understand why her extraordinary experience left her with emotions she could not explain. When friends and family expressed their concern about her psychiatric well-being, she stopped speaking about the experience, and turned to prayer instead. Eventually, she discovered the healing powers of meditation as it helped her cope with her emotional distress. Inspired by her self-observation and transcendence, she decided to purchase a synthesizer to help her transfer her emotions to sounds that resonated in her mind. She discovered beauty in using music as universal language and began to compose music for healing and meditation. She dedicated her compositions to the inspiration of her memory of the boy named Elijah.In 1993, Maria released her first professionally recorded album called “Internal Peace”. Her music rapidly became a best seller for a record company located in Hollywood, California. In 1995, her meditation music was voted Best New Music in a New Age Trade Magazine. Her popularity increased as record producers and DJs began to ask her to collaborate on various projects.In 2001, Maria decided to launch Elijah Records and Elisha Music Publishing, and dedicated a great deal of time supporting independent musicians from around the world. She began licensing music for film and television in 2003 and signed contracts with Arista Records, Sony Records, BMG-Japan, Victor Music Publishing, Beatball Records Korea, Modern Works Music Publishing, and several music companies throughout Europe and Asia.In 2005, Maria became CEO of Advanced Back Technologies, a medical device company she co-founded with her ex-husband to promote his invention. The business enabled her to travel to countries such as Korea, Russia, China, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Greece, Saudi Arabia, and many others where she occasionally shared stories of her healing music.In 2020, she decided to move to Naples, Florida to quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic. During quarantine, she discovered the healing power of writing, and became a published author by contributing her transformational story to a book anthology called Turning Point Moments, now available on Amazon. Maria’s upcoming memoir will be published during 2022.Website mariacuccia.comBook Turning Point Moments
