Portland Magazine
January 1, 2022
Hector Mendoza, UP’s new campus minister for liturgical music, started his musical journey when he was only a child. By the age of seven, he was already performing percussion in the Venezuelan ensemble “El Sistema.”
Story by Danny McGarry ’17
Photos by Bob Kerns
HECTOR MENDOZA, UP’s new campus minister for liturgical music, started his musical journey when he was only a child. By the age of seven, he was already performing percussion in the Venezuelan ensemble “El Sistema.” He trained with several classical composers while he lived in Venezuela, and he eventually traveled to the University of Vienna, where he taught about contemporary Venezuelan music and its influence on Europe.
Mendoza moved to the US with his son after his wife passed, seeking to start fresh. “I wanted nothing but to forget about my past,” he says. “In fact, I wanted to quit being a musician.” He was confused and angry with God. Perhaps ironically, one of the first jobs he worked was playing with a church orchestra. “I had never played at Mass except for classical pieces,” he says. But the work ended up strengthening his connection to liturgical music.
When he eventually shifted from playing to conducting, the church setting inspired him to approach music in a different way. “In a classical orchestra, when I conduct, my mission is more about perfection; it’s about the best result possible,” he says. But Mendoza conducts his liturgical music with three main goals in mind: beauty, holiness (which he says is, for him, one of the most important), and connection. “The music needs to be connected to what is happening in the liturgy,” he says. “My mission is to see the congregation singing and connected with the emotion and the spirituality that moments demand.”
Even though Mendoza immerses himself in his liturgical music, he still listens to a wide variety of genres. “I am always hearing all types of music: jazz, classical, reggaeton, salsa, bachata, etc. For example, right now I am hearing a lot of Tigran Hamasyan,” he says. “I am always searching.”
Mendoza’s UP debut was Easter Mass last spring, but his big debut was Orientation Mass, where he led an ensemble for the new students before the start of the school year.
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