Luca Mendoza

Luca Mendoza (20) is a multi-genre pianist and composer and is the 2018 Downbeat Magazine Music Award Best College Soloist, a Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellow, a National YoungArts Foundation Finalist, and a LA Music Center Spotlight Grand Prize Winner.

He is currently studying Classical Composition at USC under Pulitzer finalist Ted Hearne, and has recently been touring with saxophonist David Binney domestically and in Canada, Australia, and Vietnam.

He is one of two of the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival’s all time “Triple Crown Winners,” as a two time each member of the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, Outstanding Soloist and Gerald Wilson Award for Composition winner.

He has received eight Downbeat Magazine Student Music Awards (as a soloist, in small and large ensemble composition, and combo performance), an ASCAP Herb Alpert Award, and was a finalist in the Jazz Education Network Composer Showcase and the ASCAP Morton Gould Award. He has also been accepted into the 2018 Ravinia Steans Institute, the 2017 NARAS Grammy Band, the 2014 & 2015 Dave Brubeck Summer Jazz Colonies, and the 2015 Vail Jazz Workshop.