Larissa Maestro is a Filipinx multi-instrumentalist, recording musician, arranger, producer, and composer born in Ames, IA, raised in Ithaca, NY, and based in Nashville, TN.
Over the course of her career, Larissa's resume has become broad and varied, a testament to her deep love of creation, expression, and collaboration. She has conducted chamber orchestras, performed lead roles in musical theatre, created string arrangements for recordings, and done voice over work for games. She has written musical content for national ad campaigns, and performs regularly with Nashville's popular 90s cover band My So-Called Band. Many of her songs have been licensed for use in feature films, as well as TV shows on HBO, FX, Hulu, and Nickelodeon.
As a cellist, vocalist, and string arranger, Larissa’s work can be heard live and on recordings in support of many high caliber artists and musicians, including Allison Russell, Hozier, Mickey Guyton, Brandi Carlile, John Legend, Eminem, Ms. Lauryn Hill, H.E.R., Margo Price, and Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings. She was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” at the 2022 Americana Music Awards, and is the first cellist, as well as the first member of the Asian American Pacific Islander community to receive the award.
As a composer, Larissa has used chamber music to express her rich inner world, relationship to her Fil-Am heritage, gender expression, and neurodivergence. Her compositions have been performed by Julian Schwarz (cello), Patrick Dailey (countertenor), ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, Lockeland Strings, and La Vie Quartet. Her first piece for dance, Fortitudine, premiered with The Nashville Ballet in February 2022.
Passionate about volunteerism & social activism, Larissa has organized many ambitious fundraisers for local, national, and international nonprofit organizations, including Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities, The Oasis Center of Nashville, Hurricane Haiyan Relief, and ACLU. In 2016, Larissa co-founded the Nashville Concerto Orchestra with Roger Wiesmeyer (formerly of the Nashville Symphony), a volunteer-based community orchestra that explores the vast concerto repertoire, and provides opportunities for soloists, conductors, composers, and musicians of all levels of experience. The NCO (which operates as part of the nonprofit Mozart in Nashville) brings classical music to the diverse communities of Nashville, and donates all concert proceeds to local charities. She is currently a member of the advisory board of Jessi Zazu, Inc., a nonprofit organization founded to honor and memorialize the legacy of Jessi Zazu by continuing her work in the arts & humanities, social justice, and women's health.
Larissa studied the cello with contemporary cellist Dr. Sera Smolen, Christine Lowe-Diemecke at the Ithaca Talent Education School, and Grammy award-winning improvisational cellist Eugene Friesen at Berklee College of Music.
When her father, a now retired university professor, began designing and building instruments, Larissa began to incorporate them into her arsenal. In his workshop, Cliff Scherer re-imagined the instruments of the Philippine Rondalla (banduria, octavina, laud), and created different permutations of the mandocello and ukulele. These sounds are now an integral part of her own band project, Poly. The band released an EP, "3 Songs by Poly" in 2012. Their full length album of adorable jazz/pop standard inspired songs about animals and old movie stars was released in March of 2016, and is called "Let's Have an Adventure!".
Larissa is also the co-host of the Star Trek podcast Into the Wormhole with Larissa and Lauren, along with illustrator and friend, Lauren Lowen. The podcast is produced by We Own This Town.