At 18, Lea Garza Lands a Latin Grammy Scholarship

We first wrote about Lea Garza in 2020, when she was a 12-year-old singer belting out Demi Lovato covers well beyond her years. Six years later, at 18, that voice has earned her one of the most prestigious scholarships in Latin music.

The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation announced Aug. 5 that Garza and fellow vocalist Melissa Cruz were awarded a combined $525,000 through the Frost School of Music-Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation Scholarship. The award covers tuition and support services for bachelor’s degree studies at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.

Lea Garza performs at the Frost School of Music.
Lea Garza poses with Prodigy Scholarship sponsor Noel Schajris of Sin Bandera.Photo: Courtesy
Lea Garza, at 12, sings Demi Lovato’s “Stone Cold.”2020 file photo

It’s the latest milestone for a singer whose career largely took shape in Yucatán. Garza’s family moved to Mérida in 2017, and in the years since, Yucatán Magazine has tracked her rise from local talent contests to festival stages across the state, including a 2024 performance at the Héctor “Cholo” Herrera Festival. She has also appeared on “España Got Talent” and shared stages with Yucatecan artists including David Cavazos and Los Juglares.

Music runs in the family. Garza’s father, Javier Garza, is a mixing engineer with multiple Grammy credits, and her grandfather Xavier Garza was a member of the Mexican band Los Locos del Ritmo. Her mother, Giulia Nenci, is a music therapist. Garza holds dual citizenship and sings in Spanish, English and Italian.

Garza’s award was one of several the Foundation announced this year. The headline scholarship, worth up to $250,000, went to Puerto Rican violinist Razil Rosado Figueroa, who will study at Berklee College of Music starting this fall. That award is sponsored by Noel Schajris, the Argentine-born, Mexico-based singer and pianist best known as half of the romantic pop duo Sin Bandera. Schajris and songwriting partner Leonel García built a string of Latin chart-toppers in the early 2000s, including “Mientes Tan Bien” and “Entra en Mi Vida,” before pursuing solo careers. Schajris later became a Mexican citizen and has continued recording and touring both solo and with Sin Bandera, which reunited in 2015.

“It’s the honor of my life to help Razil expand his gift,” Schajris said in a statement announcing the scholarships.

About the Frost School

The Frost School of Music, where Garza will study, traces its roots to 1926, when the University of Miami opened with a Conservatory of Music as one of its founding academic units. It was renamed in 2003 after philanthropists Phillip and Patricia Frost donated $33 million, at the time the largest gift ever made to a university-based music school in the United States. Its alumni include Grammy-winning artists across pop, jazz and Latin music.

Raquel “Rocky” Egusquiza, the Foundation’s executive director, said the scholarships “represent an investment in the future of Latin music” and are made possible by donors supporting students across the United States and Ibero-America. Since its founding in 2014, the Foundation has committed more than $17 million in scholarships, grants and instruments.

For Garza, the award marks a shift from regional recognition — including a Palmas de Oro nomination and the Héctor Herrera “Cholo” award — to a national academic platform. Her single “LUZ,” produced by her father and written by David Cavazos, was released late last year.