Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies Lauren Meccia directs the Carolina Alive Vocal Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Lab Band and teaches jazz theory and improvisation as well as jazz saxophone and voice at the University of South Carolina. She serves as Director of the USC Essentially Ellington Regional and as project manager for the national USC Jazz Girls Day program. Meccia is a founding member of the South Carolina Jazz Masterworks Ensemble and a member of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra. 

Prof. Meccia earned a BM in music education with a Performance Certificate in saxophone and an MM in saxophone performance from the University of South Carolina. She is a founding member of the South Carolina Jazz Masterworks Ensemble and a member of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra, and has performed at national and international jazz and other music festivals. She was twice a featured performer at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA. She most recently performed with the Left Bank Big Band, USC’s premier jazz ensemble, at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy.

Prof. Meccia and guitarist Dr. Bruno Alcalde formed Duo Correntes in 2023. The duo is dedicated to creating and performing arrangements of Brazilian popular music from the 1800s to the present day. Duo Correntes gave its debut performance at the 2023 North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) Biennial Conference in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and was featured at the World Saxophone Congress XIX in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. 

Prof. Meccia has been a featured soloist with symphony orchestras and concert bands throughout the US and has appeared in concert with Kurt Elling, Camille Thurman, Joe Lovano, Veronica Swift, Jon Faddis, Kenny Barron, Chris Potter, Jeff Coffin, Wycliffe Gordon, Tommy Igoe, Mike Steinel, Wayne Bergeron, the New York Voices, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Temptations, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, and Jesse Colin Young. Her debut vocal album, Inside Your Eyes, was released in 2015 and received positive reviews in jazz publications throughout the United States, Russia and Japan.