An Inspired Chat with Dominique Moreno-Baltierra

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Dominique Moreno-Baltierra. Check out our conversation below.

Dominique, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
Something I’m proud of:

Over the course of a week I put together a song, although it took 8 years to bring it to that point. The poem that the lyrics are based on was written about 8 years ago. The song is called Gibraltar (Rosie) and the backing track & instrumentals were remixed by Derealise (my friend Edwin Fry).

The influences for the song are mostly Grime and Kate Bush, and it has the same dreamy, distant, little bit chaotic, unstructured sound as they do.

I gave myself a deadline of 2 weeks to finish the vocals for this song. I had started work on the vocals back during the summer (so a few months ago), and I hadn’t touched it again until now. I learned so much during that week. I learned about bars, measures, melody theory, scale degrees, backbeats, song structures, hooks, stems, EQ.

In the end it didn’t matter if the song wasn’t perfect, I still learned so much that I can use on the next project.
I also finally got use FL Studio (software used to produce music) despite buying a license for it several years ago and never using it until now.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am a mom who juggles a career in tech, trying to express myself creatively, who enjoys spending time with family through travel.

My main career is as a web/app/software developer, which I originally got into as a teenager because I liked creating my own web pages, and I enjoyed the challenge of it. It’s basically about solving puzzles all day, or at least that’s how I see it.

My other passion is languages and travel. When I was 14, I tried teaching myself a bunch of random languages like Gaelic, Basque, Dutch, Mandarin.

I don’t do much with languages nowadays, but I still love changing my environment and seeing different places. Nowadays, my travel is focused on staying connected with family or friends who live across large distances.

My other passions include storytelling through film, drawing, modeling, and more recently, expression through song.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
This is a question that I have thought about for most of my life. What can I do to bring people together? Why do there have to be endings? Why can’t we all just get along?

I used to think that family was important because they’re related to us, and it was because of that bond that I am close to them. However, I think with most close family bonds, there’s a reciprocity. There’s an acceptance. So it’s not so much about the shared ancestry – that’s simply what brings individuals together in the first place, but it’s not necessarily the glue that holds them together. The glue is from the reciprocal acceptance and support.

So when it stops being reciprocal, that’s what breaks the bond. That’s also the key to restoring it, but both parties need to be willing to take the step.

I think unconditional love does exist, for sure. But a lot of relationships fall into subconscious transactional patterns, or are based on each party fulfilling a specific role.

I think it’s beautiful when people can offer forgiveness. But when there’s been a serious hurt, forgiveness without justice can feel hollow. That’s why it’s important for people to be able to have open conversations where they can jointly agree on what that justice would look like in a way that’s authentic for both people. Getting to that point is the real challenge of human nature.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
This is still an ongoing process, but one of the first steps was realizing that my difficult moments could be used as inspiration for stories or screenplays or poems or songs. I want someone to be able to come across it – now or maybe 100 years from now- and have it make them feel not so alone.

I remember having a conversation with an old friend of mine a long time ago and both of us agreeing that we wouldn’t attempt writing a novel, for example, unless it was going to be a masterpiece. But now I feel differently. Now I feel like it’s wonerfully freeing to be able create for the sake of creation itself.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
So now I’m going to talk a bit more about my tech-related projects!

I think the idea of preserving people’s life experiences is super important. There is so much information lost between generations, and I just think it would be so much more efficient to be able to preserve that knowledge to make it easier for future generations to not repeat the same mistakes.

I have a project called Souvenons that is basically about allowing people to upload video interviews of family members (or anyone!) and have them automatically transcribed and stored in a database. The site allows users to then ask an AI agent questions about the interview, so for example you could ask “what was Gloria’s father like?” and you would get relevant quotes from the interview describing the subject’s father.

The next step is to grow the database of interviews. It’s so hard to find the time to dedicate to projects like these, especially when it’s a solo thing.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
That you don’t have to be “just one thing”. A quote that I can really relate to is this: “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one”.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Nathanaël Pfister (Land Reveur)
Robin Lorraine
Danny Leach
Brian F Simmons

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Highlighter Series
Life, Lessons, & Legacies

Shari Mocheit Put God first and trust the process. See God in everyone and everything.

Highlighter Series
Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?

Del Kary Definitely what I was born to do. Since I can remember, movies have

Highlighter Series
Local Highlighter Series

Sean Glatch Anyone can write poetry! To prove this, well, everyone would have to write