Andreas’ legacy

Music was a constant in the Flórez household. Andreas began piano at nine, and though Alejandro – being a musician himself – tried to teach him guitar, Andreas preferred to find his own way. He developed a unique style, holding chords differently and crafting a personal "feel" to accompany his singing.

“I still remember seeing Andy in the kitchen with a guitar in his hand,” says Alejandro. “He was small but completely absorbed in it.”

That focus extended to his convictions. As a child, Andreas wrote poems about social justice; Alejandro recalls his brother’s inability to "just let things go" when he perceived unfairness. He carried that intensity into his lyrics and his friendships. In high school, he formed a band called The People. Alejandro remembers Andreas’s magnetic stage presence: “He floated between keys, guitar, and vocals. When he stepped forward to sing Beatles songs, the girls rushed the stage, but he remained completely humble.”

Andreas’s path to university was guided by his passion. After graduating high school with an ATAR in the high 90s, he explored other institutions before finding his fit at RMIT – a program rooted in the music industry he already loved.

By the time Andreas arrived at RMIT, he was no longer the teenager just starting out. He already had experience playing shows, writing, recording and thinking deeply about the role of music in the world. 

RMIT Music Industry Program Manager, Associate Professor Shelley Brunt, remembers him as always being very cordial, polite and respectful to lecturers. “He came to us almost as a fully formed human rather than just an early entry teenager. We were part of his journey, we weren’t his whole journey in terms of the music industry, because of his nature and his passion.”

Senior Lecturer in the Bachelor of Arts (Music Industry), Ian Rogers, had just started teaching at RMIT when Andreas landed in his class. “He was in this early cohort where a lot of them have now established themselves in their music careers. Some of them are significant performing artists. He was right in the mix of all these very talented, very professional and kind of cool music students,” he says.

“Some people come to us with just a high school background and very education-focused understanding of music, but Andreas had his own interactions with the music world with his own passions for different styles of music and his own family connections to music.” 

In his final year at RMIT, he seized the RMIT Global Experience opportunity to study in San Diego. “This is where he really spread his wings,” Maria says.

San Diego offered production opportunities unavailable in Australia’s smaller market. Though he excelled in an acting elective – surprising assessors who urged him to audition professionally – music remained his core. He also forged lasting bonds and friendships there.

Through it all, Andreas never stopped creating. He painted, drew, and wrote songs that wove together themes of justice, love, and loss. Upon returning to Melbourne, he graduated and completed his first EP, Delusions of Grandeur. He saw the record as his professional CV, a way to secure an entertainer’s visa and return to the United States.

It was during this peak of creative momentum that Andreas was diagnosed with leukaemia. During his hardest days, he was surrounded by love.

Even as he underwent a bone marrow transplant from Alejandro, Andreas continued to play. A week before he died, he was interviewed on community radio – his voice remained full of the light and optimism that defined him. To his family, the recording is proof of a man who refused to be reduced to a diagnosis.

One lyric from his EP, written long before his illness, now feels eerily prophetic: “If I only had a little bit more time, I’d show you what I could be.”

Andreas did not want to be remembered for his illness. “I didn’t come into this world to die of leukaemia at 24,” he once said. He wanted to be known for his music and the way he lived. Having navigated the early loss of close friends to cancer and accidents, he had learned to channel grief into empathy.

The Andreas Flórez Travel Scholarship was born from the family's desire to keep his spirit moving through the world. Today, the scholarship supports RMIT students as they explore new cities and stages – walking the path Andreas once dreamed for himself.

“We take comfort in knowing that long after our family is gone,” Maria says, “there will still be a small, bright thread of Andreas’s story woven into the lives of young musicians.”