Kenzo Mesa is a 15-year-old Japanese American from San Francisco, California, USA and has been playing piano since he was four and a half years old. Kenzo is currently enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) in the pre-college piano division under the tutelage of Meikui Matsushima and is a recipient of the M. Blair Vorsatz Scholarship in honor of Tomoko Hagiwara. He also received the Marist-Dicioccio Scholarship for Performing and Visual Arts from his alma mater Notre Dame des Victoires in 2022.
Kenzo was recently invited to the 69th Junior Bach Festival in San Francisco, California last year and was selected to perform at the Old First Presbyterian Church. He has placed numerous times in the Great Composers Competition series, including First Prize in the 2023 and 2020 Best Chopin Performance, 2022 Best Bach performance, and 2019 Best Mozart Performance; and Second Prize in the 2019 Best Beethoven performance and 2018 Best Schubert performance. Kenzo has also been awarded Third Prize in solo piano performance at the 2018 ENKOR international music competition. Aside from competitions, he has performed numerous engagements on various occasions including churches and fundraising events such as the mother and daughter tea party at the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco, and the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living senior services group.
Chamber music is also a part of Kenzo’s repertoire. In 2018 and 2021, he received the Chamber Music Award at SFCM and Third Prize in chamber music as a piano duo in the 2020 ENKOR international music competition. He was selected to perform the “Juliken Piano Duo” at his conservatory’s Holiday Showcase in 2019. Kenzo is also a member of the chamber orchestra at San Francisco University High School, serving as a pianist under the tutelage of Ernesto Mazar Kindelán.
Aside from music, Kenzo plays for both his high school’s varsity soccer team and San Francisco Glens club as a defensive midfielder. He enjoys studying math and reading history novels.
