Lauri Mendes has been actively teaching in the California and Ohio areas for the past nineteen years. Ms. Mendes holds a Master’s degree from USC with instructors that include the renowned pianist Daniel Pollack and harpsichordist Malcolm Hamilton. Ms. Mendes has also finished seventy-eight credits towards a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Mendes holds a bachelor’s of music degree from Cal State Fullerton that includes her primary piano pedagogy teachers consisting of Dr. Martha Baker-Jordan, Dr. M’Lou Dietzer, and Maryann Uzler from USC. She instructs beginning through advanced piano repertoire, theory, aural skills, and ensemble repertoire. She has worked with the Teens-In-Training program that brought piano lessons to the underprivileged children in the inner city schools of Cleveland. In addition, Ms. Mendes has taught in Twin Lakes, Michigan during the summer months of 1999 and 2000 and served as adjunct faculty at Cuyahoga Community College and Cerritos College. Active as an accompanist, she has worked with young artists at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Cleveland Music School Settlement, Cleveland Contemporary Music Ensemble, and in the public school systems including the Lynhurst and Mayfield school districts. Ms. Mendes has performed as an accompanist in “The Music Man,”
“The King and I,” “Oliver,” and “The Secret Garden.” She has served the Catholic Diocese since 1988. She was named Music Director and Choir Director at Christ the King Church in which she taught adult and children choirs, outreach programs for the poor and a yearly Christmas pageant for the kindergarten students of Christ the King School. Active as a performer, she has won abundant scholarships including the
Wolford Scholarship, scholarship from the Cleveland Institute of Music, scholarship from the Free Masons and numerous piano competition awards. She has performed several faculty recitals in California, Ohio, and Michigan. In Louisiana, Ms. Mendes performed as a finalist in the Ducrest Young Artist International Piano Competition and has performed live from WCLV “Arts on the Air” for a fundraiser toward the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Ms. Mendes has been featured as a pianist with the Fullerton Symphony and a harpsichordist with the USC Symphony. Among her greatest and proudest moments was belonging to “Access to the Arts” where she played solo and ensemble music to the elderly. Currently she belongs to the Music Teachers’ Association, National Guild of Piano Teachers, Golden Key National Honor Society and Phi Kappa Lambda Beta Omega of the National Honor Music Society. She enjoys teaching and playing with her dogs.