Honors and awards
- QuestBridge Scholar, Vanderbilt University
- Semper Fidelis Marine Award of Musical Excellence
- WMEA State Champion in multiple categories
- GPA 3.9+ at Vanderbilt
Founder
Makoa Lewis
Founder, Global Music Initiative · Percussionist · Vanderbilt University
- HometownHockinson, Washington
- StudyingHuman and Organizational Development and Culture, Advocacy, and Leadership · Minor in Percussion Performance · Vanderbilt, Class of 2029
- InstrumentOrchestral percussion · Section leader
- ScholarQuestBridge Scholar
- HeritageNative Hawaiian
- LeadingThe Sarangi Documentation Project
His story
From a small town to the world stage.
Makoa Lewis is a percussionist, a student at Vanderbilt University, and the founder of the Global Music Initiative.
He grew up in Hockinson, a small rural community in southwest Washington, in a family and a town where opportunities in music didn't come easily. Percussion became his path: a place to put his energy, a discipline to build on, and a reason to keep going.
At 15 he was accepted to the YOLA National Festival, which brings together young musicians from across the country, and performed alongside the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel. He went on to spend three years with Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, a program that was completely free for him and the students it serves, and was chosen as one of only 10 students in the United States to represent the country in the Pacific Honors Ensemble in Brisbane, Australia. Through all of it, while keeping up with school and a demanding music schedule, he worked in fast-food kitchens and on landscaping crews to support himself.
What stayed with him wasn't only the stage. It was realizing that talent is everywhere, but access isn't.
Today he is a QuestBridge Scholar at Vanderbilt, majoring in Human and Organizational Development and in Culture, Advocacy, and Leadership, with a minor in Percussion Performance. As a member of the Vanderbilt Percussion Group, he toured Portugal in spring 2026. There, he developed GMI through Immersion Vanderbilt to open more of those doors: connecting people across borders and backgrounds through music, and expanding access to music education for students in underserved and rural communities. He is leading GMI's first project, the Sarangi Documentation Project in Nepal.
Achievements
A record of showing up and leading.
1 of 10U.S. students chosen for the Pacific Honors Ensemble, Brisbane, Australia
3 yearswith Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), 2023–2025
State championWMEA, in multiple categories
QuestBridgeScholar at Vanderbilt University
National and international ensembles
- Pacific Honors Ensemble, U.S. representative, Brisbane, Australia (2024)
- Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), musician (2023–2025), including the YOLA National Festival with the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel
- El Sistema YOLA Orchestra Collective, Toronto, Canada (2025)
- Vanderbilt Percussion Group, Portugal performance tour (spring 2026), including a joint concert with ESART percussion in Castelo Branco celebrating American and Portuguese chamber music. Watch the tour video
- Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Paraguay, percussion, including the Paraguayan premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 2
- Western International Band Clinic
Leadership
- Founder, Global Music Initiative
- Percussion section leader in advanced ensembles
- Programming Chair and Executive Board member, Beta Theta Pi, Beta Lambda chapter: plans semester-long programming, builds and manages event budgets, and leads alumni outreach and recruitment
In his words
Why I started GMI.
I didn't grow up near a concert hall. I grew up in a small town where most kids never got the chance to find out what they could do with music.
When I was fifteen, I got into the YOLA National Festival and ended up on stage with the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel. The performance changed me, but the people changed me more. I was surrounded by young musicians from towns and neighborhoods I'd never heard of. We came from completely different places, and most of us would never have met any other way. Someone had made a deliberate effort to put us in the same room.
That's what GMI is built on. Talent and curiosity are everywhere. Opportunity isn't. I want to build the kind of doors that were opened for me, and hold them open for as many people as possible.
Nepal is where we start. Gandharva musicians have carried stories on the sarangi for generations, and much of that tradition has never been fully recorded. I want us to document it with the musicians who carry it, respectfully and with our partners in Nepal, so it can be heard and passed on.
I also want to bring a cohort of students who, like me, might never have been in that room otherwise: students from different schools, backgrounds, and fields, working side by side. Cost shouldn't decide who gets to go.
Nepal is only the beginning. If we get this right, it becomes the first link in a growing network: university chapters and communities around the world, preserving music, connecting people who would never have met, and proving that a small, determined group of students can do work that matters.
Makoa LewisFounder, Global Music Initiative
Photos
On stage and in the work.
Get in touch with Makoa.
For partnerships, press, or questions about GMI and the Nepal project.