Fuensanta currently works mainly with her project Ensamble Grande, which she describes as her “international family of rare birds.”

Fuensanta Mendéz: Ensamble Grande is Fuensanta Méndez [mexico] (voice, double bass, songs), Marta Arpini [italy] (voice, synth), Gabriel Milliet [brazil] (voice, flute, minor percussion), Sanem Kalfa [turkey] (voice), Liva Dumpe [latvia] (voice), Alistair Payne [scotland] (trumpet), José Soares [portugal] (alto saxophone), Sun-Mi Hong [south korea] (drums, korean drum) and Guy Salamon [israel] (drums, percussion).

With poetry and improvisation as guiding principles, Fuensanta and her Ensamble Grande create “a performance in which [her] music and poetry serve as a thread embodied by brilliant improvisers. “

Fuensanta Méndez grew up surrounded by traditional Latin-American and contemporary European music, dance, theater and books. At thirteen she decided to be a singer and began studying and performing jazz.

Méndez moved to the Netherlands to study at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, from which she graduated summa cum laude in 2019. She debuted her compositions during the Prinses Christina Jazz Concours in 2016, achieving 1st place, the press prize and an invitation to perform with her quintet at North Sea Jazz Festival 2017. Since then, she has performed around Europe and Mexico as a solo artist, bandleader and in a variety of collaborations and other constellations of her project as a soloist. Since September 2021, she is artist in residence (Nieuwe Maker) at the renowned venue BIMHUIS for a two year long collaboration. 

In June 2021, Mendéz premiered a new programme composed for her Ensamble Grande at Music Meeting Festival (2021). Watch it here!