López-Nussa was born into a musical family in Havana on July 13, 1983. Not only are his father and uncle—Ernán, a pianist—working musicians, but also his late mother, Mayra Torres, was a highly regarded piano teacher. At the age of eight, López-Nussa began studying at the Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, then the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and finally graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA). “I studied classical music and that’s all I did until I was 18,” he says. Then came jazz.