Learn more about Luka’s most popular songs.
Ian’s Waltz
Luka initially wrote this fast-paced waltz when they were 11 years old, arranged as a piano solo. In eighth grade, Luka worked with their orchestra teacher, Andy Johnson, to arrange the piece for orchestra. The orchestra arrangement was performed at Jefferson Middle School’s last orchestra concert of the year in June of 2015. Finally, with the help of high school band director Rob Perkins, Luka rearranged Ian’s Waltz once more, this time for wind ensemble. The wind ensemble arrangement was performed by Wausau East High School in December of 2016.
Ian’s Waltz is named after Luka’s brother, Ian, who has ADHD. Because the waltz is so lively, Luka thought that it embodied Ian’s personality and energy perfectly.
1 Corinthians 13:13
This emotional song was written by Luka as a project for their Applied Musicianship class in their freshman year of college at Lawrence University. Luka decided to write a song about their journey of discovering their sexuality while simultaneously acknowledging their own—and their family’s—Christian faith. In the beginning of the song, Luka reads aloud an entry from their journal, setting the scene for their confusing feelings at the age of thirteen. Each verse of the song tells a different part of Luka’s story following that initial journal entry, ending at the bridge, where they “come out,” and announce that they are “tired of hiding.”
The song ends with a touching piece of audio from Luka’s baptism, representing that they are at peace with where they are regarding both their sexual identity and their faith.
Lágrimas y Memorias
This is another tune that Luka wrote for their Applied Musicianship class. The assignment required each student to write a piece using elements that were unfamiliar to them. For Luka, that meant a totally different style, chord progression, and even a different language. Luka has family living in Spain who can’t always appreciate their music to the fullest extent because they do not speak English. So, Luka decided they wanted to write a song in a Spanish style, and write the lyrics in Spanish as well. Writing lyrics in a different language was quite the challenge for Luka; exploring different rhyme schemes and diction was both a very new and very rewarding learning experience for them.
Lágrimas y Memorias is about the village where Luka’s grandfather grew up in Villafranca del Bierzo, Spain. The footage in the music video was taken in the actual village when Luka’s family visited Spain in December 2015.