Born in 1998 in Herisau, Lea von Mentlen has been singing since she was a child. She gathered her first performance experiences at the music school in Herisau. At the Cantonal School in Trogen, she was allowed to participate in a wide variety of band-, theatre-, opera- and musical productions. This gave rise to the band Apatan, with which Lea played on various stages until last December. After a year of precollege in Basel, Lea began studying jazz at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2020. There she met the guitarist Rich Harpur and together they founded their duo Rich and Lea, and Rich’s Brew.