Joanna Mendoza

Joanna Mendoza, Professor of Viola, joined the Arianna String Quartet and the music faculty of the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2008.

With the ASQ, Ms. Mendoza regularly performs throughout the U.S. and abroad; most recently at international music festivals in Aguascalientes and Naolinco, Mexico, and Santa Catarina, Brazil. The ASQ can be heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and on “Live from Music Mountain,” broadcast to 125 stations in the U.S. and to 35 countries. The Arianna Quartet’s recent recordings of the two Janacek Quartets, and the Early and Middle Beethoven Quartets, all released on Centaur Records, received critical acclaim.

Highly sought-after teachers, the ASQ is regularly invited to colleges and conservatories worldwide including Peabody, Oberlin, University of Houston, Northwestern, and in South Africa at Stellenbosch and University of Pretoria. Additionally, Ms. Mendoza’s students have been accepted in graduate music programs at the Jacobs School of Music at IU, Peabody Institute, Northwestern, DePaul, University of NC-Greensboro, and East Carolina University, and have participated in festivals including Music Academy of the West, Colorado Music Festival, and Madeline Island Chamber Music.

In addition to teaching applied music and chamber music, Ms. Mendoza also teaches music history and co-teaches an interdisciplinary course in the UMSL Pierre Laclede Honors College with UMSL Professor of Chemistry, James Bashkin.

Prior to joining the Arianna Quartet, Ms. Mendoza was a ten-year member of the Harrington String Quartet, featured in the PBS documentary, A Sound Collaboration: The Harrington String Quartet, and recorded a Grammy-nominated album of the works of Daniel McCarthy. She has served on the faculties of West Texas A&M University and the University of Oklahoma.

Ms. Mendoza received her bachelor of music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied with Richard Blum and Sally Chisholm of the Pro Arte Quartet, and received her master of music degree from the Juilliard School where she was a student of William Lincer and the Juilliard Quartet.