Associate Professor of Music (Viola)
Prior to coming to Oklahoma, Mendoza was a guest with the Pro Arte Quartet and the Miami String Quartet and has collaborated with esteemed artists such as Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Corey Cerovsek, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau. She spent summers performing and teaching at festivals nationwide including Interlochen Arts Camp, Chamber Music at the Barn, Mammoth Lakes Music Festival, Madeleine Island Music Camp and Midwest Young Artists. In addition, Mendoza gave master classes and recitals at Wichita State University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Houston and most recently at Renmin University in Beijing, China. As a former principal violist with the New World Symphony, Mendoza had the opportunity to work with many world-renowned conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Christophe Eschenbach and Donald Runnicles. She performed in South America with the orchestra and in the Hamptons and Italy as a chamber musician on behalf of the orchestra. Since then, she has performed at the Quartz Mountain Music Festival, Bellingham Festival of Music, Colorado Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival and with Santa Fe Pro Musica. Originally from Milwaukee, Mendoza earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Richard Blum and Sally Chisholm. She received her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School where she studied with William Lincer. Her chamber music coaches have included members of the Amadeus, Juilliard, and Cleveland Quartets. |
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Praised in New York Stringer Magazine for her "lush, sonorous and assertive tone," violist Janna Mendoza is the newly appointed associate professor of viola at the University of Oklahoma. Mendoza performs regularly with Quartet-à-tête, a piano quartet of which she is a founding member. From 1997 to 2007, Mendoza was the violist of the Harrington String Quartet, principal violist of the Amarillo Symphony and served on the faculty at West Texas A& M University. Mendoza performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe with the Harrington Quartet and collaborated with acclaimed artists such as Robert Levin, James Dunham, William Preucil, David Shifrin, Pepe Romero and members of the Cavani and Miro Quartets. The quartet premiered commissions by Kenji Bunch ("String Circle", commissioned for Mendoza by V.J. Jordan), John Novacek ("Cutaway") and Suzanne Farrin ("Twisting of the Rope," for uilleann bagpipes and string quartet). The quartet is featured in a PBS documentary titled “A Sound Collaboration- The Harrington String Quartet.” The Harrington Quartet recording of three commissioned works by Daniel McCarthy is available on Albany Records.