Lydia Luce | OohYeah

Lydia Luce grew up in South Florida constantly surrounded by music. She began studying piano at the age of four and switched to violin at the age of six, and at that time was thrown into a world of classical music. Luce has played in orchestras with soloists such as Christopher O’Reilly and Nestor Torres, and under conductors such as Keith Lockhart, Larry Livingston and Benjamin Zander. She switched to viola her senior year of high school, when she immediately fell in love with the rich tone and power of the instrument. Luce auditioned for Berklee College of Music in Boston because of its wide variety in musical genres, and was offered partial scholarship. Berklee helped her to discover herself as a musician and taught her how to improvise in many different styles of music. She has performed with artists such as Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, Annie Lennox, Terri Lynn Carrington and many others. Luce spent nine months interning under Atesh Sonneborn at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, doing research, writing, and working with archival materials. During her time at Folkways she realized she wanted to go back to school and continue studying viola performance and ethnomusicology. Luce accepted a teaching assistantship and scholarship at UCLA for Fall of 2014 where she is currently studying with Richard O'neill. She has travelled to Ghana twice with Berklee Percussion Professor, Joe Galeota, who specializes in the study of West African Music. Galeota is particularly known for his extensive study in Ghanaian drumming and dancing. She fell in love with the complex rhythms and dances. Luce recently gave lectures at Nova South Eastern University and to music students in Baltimore, MD on the varieties of different styles of music and dance in Ghana. Growing up in South Florida she has a strong passion for the ocean. She loves to scuba dive and has just received her PADI rescue diving certification. "Lydia Luce is a rare kind of musician whose strengths as a skilled violist are exceeded only by her natural capacity to lift the spirit and better the performance of any session she's involved in. It's really a thrill to watch the quality of other players musicianship improve solely because Lydia is in the room. I have had the honor of working together with Lydia on a number of projects that without her, wouldn't have the same depth, personality, or character and I genuinely look forward to working with her more in the future." - Evan Chapman, Loft Sessions