Congratulations to the 2025 Billy Strayhorn Jazz Education Scholarship award recipient from the Berklee College of Music: Lucas Labeau

Congratulations to our 2025 Strayhorn Scholarship Award recipient from the Berklee College of Music piano and composition audition, Lucas Labeau. Lucas, who is a freshman at Berklee, hails from Greendale, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. He graduated from Greendale High School. Lucas started playing classical piano at 4 years old and classical violin at 8. He developed a love for jazz in those early years as well. Some of the other college offers Lucas entertained were from the Manhattan School of Music, The New School in NYC and the Thornton School of Music at USC before deciding on Berklee.

Some of his piano influences in jazz include Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Sullivan Fortner. Classical piano influences for Lucas include Ravel, Debussy and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Jason Yeager, associate professor of piano at Berklee had the following to say about the competition and Lucas: “We had a very talented pool of 14 students, and our winner was Lucas. He astounded us with a trio original composition, and a solo version of Strayhorn’s ‘Isfahan.’ The concert will be in the February 27th-29th window and it will be streaming. Ever Up and Onward!”

A special thanks to Berklee and professor Jason Yeager for collaborating with the Billy Strayhorn Foundation for the second year to bring about such amazing talent to showcase with this piano and composition audition. We send a big congrats to Lucas also for his standout performance and the many musical talents he is excelling in. We look forward to the Keys Fest concert featuring Lucas in February and leave you with Billy Strayhorn’s inspirational words…”Ever Up and Onward.”