From Miami Beach to Abbey Road, Jorge Mejia's 'If These Walls Could Talk' Finds a Global Stage Thanks to Apple Music Classical

MIAMI. Long before Jorge Mejia recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, before his piano concerto If This Walls Could Talk reached Apple Music Classical, and before the U.S. premiere in his home city of Miami, the story began in a small apartment building on Collins Avenue.

The building, at 221 Collins Ave. in Miami Beach, once housed Mejia, the Colombian-born composer, pianist, and president and CEO of Sony Music Publishing Latin America and U.S. Latin. The property, built in the 1920s, became the emotional and architectural starting point for If These Walls Could Talk, a three-movement piano concerto shaped by memory, imagination, and the ghosts of Miami Beach's past.

Apple Music Classical lists the 2026 recording as performed by Mejia, the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ricardo Jaramillo, with three movements titled "I. First Floor," "II. Second Floor" and "III. Rooftop."

For Mejia, the building was never just a place to sleep. It was a question.

Who had lived there before him? What had they survived? What had those walls heard? In an interview with this reporter, he explained that often when he lived there as a young man in his 20s, he imagined the lives that had passed through it, from the Great Miami Hurricane to decades of transformation in South Beach.

"I wondered about all the people who would have lived there, what their stories would be," Mejia said.

The result is much more than a traditional nostalgia piece or a classical piano concerto. Producer by maestro Julio Reyes Copello, If These Walls Could Talk moves like a building full of lives and full of genres and rhythms. The first movement, "First Floor," carries storm and urgency. The second, "Second Floor," turns inward with a question-and-answer structure. The third, "Rooftop," pushes toward repetition, release and defiance. Mejia explained that the piece has a dramatic character, but rejected the idea that it should be reduced to melodrama.

"I want people to feel inspired, to feel better, to connect emotionally with themselves," Mejia said. "In some way, I hope this piece creates that emotional connection."
That emotional goal is central to the way Mejia talks about music. He is one of the rare figures who moves comfortably between the executive suite and the concert hall. At Sony Music Publishing, he oversees operations across Latin America and the U.S. Latin market, with offices in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Miami, according to Abbey Road Institute.

Yet Mejia does not describe his corporate work and his composing as opposing lives. To him, both require the same essential act: communicating a vision. "At the desk, I am in charge of Latin America and the U.S. Latin market, and my job is to communicate a vision to a team and hopefully excite and inspire that team to follow it," Mejia said. "As a musician, it is also about communicating a vision and exciting and inspiring the audience to follow that music."

His industry role gives the release an added layer, as he understands the world of classical music from the inside. That may be why the Apple Music Classical release feels not only like the perfect streaming placement, it's also part of the work's mission.

"Apple Music Classical is a beautiful platform because it is dedicated only to classical music," Mejia said. "It solves all the metadata problems that classical works can have."
For classical music, metadata is not a small issue. A single work may involve a composer, conductor, soloist, orchestra, ensemble, movements and multiple recordings across decades. Mejia said Apple Music Classical creates a cleaner path for listeners, especially those who may feel intimidated by the genre.

"They create bridges to the music," he said. "And that is what I am trying to do too."
The bridge has already stretched across continents. Before its U.S. premiere, Mejia told The Miami Hurricane he had played the piece internationally in countries including Spain, Uruguay and Colombia. The April 26 performance at the Adrienne Arsht Center marked its U.S. premiere, with Mejia performing alongside the Frost Symphony Orchestra under conductor Gerard Schwarz.

"I've played this piece all over, and now the U.S. premiere is here in Miami with my alma mater," Mejia said.

The recording adds another dream location to the story. Mejia said the album includes the piano concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, recorded at Abbey Road's Studio One, and sextets recorded at the famed Studio Two, the room associated with The Beatles.
"For any musician, playing with the London Symphony Orchestra is a dream," Mejia said. "And Abbey Road is incredible."

Still, the most intimate dedication is not to a city, a building or an institution. It is to his wife and to his late mother, Nancy Pulecio, who died less than a year before the interview.
"It is dedicated to my wife and also to my mother," Mejia said. "She died less than a year ago. So it also carries part of her."

Pulecio was more than a private influence. Mejia said she was a singer-songwriter who made an album called El rincón tan nuestro, a title that now feels almost uncannily connected to a concerto born from rooms, corners and memory.

That is where If These Walls Could Talk finds its deepest resonance. It is a classical work about a Miami Beach building, yes. It is also a Latin music executive's return to the piano, a son's tribute to his mother, and a digital-era argument that classical music can still reach people if the door is opened with care.

The walls, in this case, do talk. They speak in piano, strings, storm, memory, and a mother's echo.