IN STILE MODERNO

A native of Puerto Montt in Chile, Juan A. Mesa holds a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance and composition from Western Connecticut State University, and both a Master of Music degree in organ performance and a PhD in Music Theory from Indiana University. His teachers include Stephen Roberts and Christopher Young, organ; Elisabeth Wright, harpsichord and continuo; and Todd Wilson and Jeffrey Smith, organ improvisation. Mesa has performed solo recitals across the US, Canada, Chile, and Argentina, and has collaborated with the Indiana-based Exordium Baroque Ensemble, the Choirs of Trinity Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, MIRYAM ensemble of Boston, and the University of Notre Dame’s Children’s Choir, among others. He is co-founder of Le Note Diverse, a Boston-based early music ensemble which specializes in under-researched music for plucked instruments and early keyboards. Mesa is a first prize winner of the AGO Regional Competition for Young Organists, and has performed organ concerts at regional and national AGO conventions and competitions. His research focuses on phrase structure in the ritornello forms of J. S. Bach (dissertation title "A Revised Model for the Analysis of J .S Bach's Concerto Ritornelli"). As a conductor, he has specialized in historically-informed performances of baroque and early classical repertoire for voices and instruments, delivering programs that include all-Bach and all-Buxtehude marathons. He is currently College Organist and Assistant Professor of Music Performance (organ) at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, Director of Music and Organist at St Leonard's Church in Boston's North End, as well as Music Minister at the Roslindale Congregational Church in Boston. In his free time he can be found cooking, hiking, and soaring the New England skies onboard his favorite airplane, the Piper Archer II.