Luka Akaeda Santesson

Luca Akaeda Santesson is an organist born in 2001 in Milan, Italy. Interested in music from a young age, he begins his musical journey in 2009 in the organ class of Jean-François Hatton at the Conservatoire Claude Debussy, Paris. From 2013 to 2019, Luca continues his study at the CRR of Lyon under Lionel Avot and Yves Lafargues and gets his musical degree in organ in 2018.
In 2019, he is admitted at the CNSMD of Lyon in the organ class of Francois Espinasse and Liesbeth Schlumberger and obtained his masters degree in 2024, after one exchange year at the HfMT Hamburg in the classes of Wolfgang Zerer and Pieter van Dijk in 2022/2023. Currently, Luca studies at the HfMT Hamburg with Pieter van Dijk for his Konzertexamen degree.
Aged 22, Luca has won numerous international distinctions, such as the Grand Prize and the Public Prize at the Grand Prix d’Orgue Jean Louis Florentz 2022, as well as the Second Prize and Best Interpretation of Messiaen works Prize at the second edition of the International Olivier Messiaen Competition. In June 2023, he is appointed young ECHO organist of the year 2024 after winning the fifteenth edition of the International Schnitger Organ Competition in Alkmaar.
In parallel of his organ studies, he has studied early music with harpsichord (with Noëlle Spieth, Catherine Latzarus, Yves Rechsteiner) and Clavichord (Illton Wjunisky) for over ten years.
Luca Akaeda Santesson also leans his curiosity towards more creative and new projects, the latest being his transcriptions of video game music and electronic music for the pipe organ.