
About
Melissa Muñoz is a dedicated trumpeter and educator based in New York City. She enjoys a career of freelancing, subbing on Broadway, and teaching in the New York Tri-State area. She has performed with The Dallas Winds, Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, The Metropolitan Opera, and Orchestra of St. Luke's. Melissa is an avid chamber musician and is currently a member or Heartbeat Trio, playing alongside Blair Hamrick on horn and Julie Dombroski on trombone. She competed in the 2020 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition with Elm Street Brass Quintet, where the group advanced to the semi-finals round and received the American Brass Quintet Prize.
Melissa earned her Bachelor of Music degree at The University of Texas at Austin and Master of Music degree at Yale School of Music, where she was awarded the John Swallow Brass Prize. She also studied at the Colburn School under the tutelage of Jim Wilt. Melissa was a fellow in the Cleveland Institute of Music's inaugural Future of Music Faculty Fellowship, a program designed to represent “a critical step forward in creating diversity within the music academy and beyond.” Most recently, she has joined The Collective as a writer, an online publication serving as a gathering place for visionary thinkers.
Melissa has a passion for education and loves aiding her students as they discover their own sound, flow, and musicianship. She has served as Adjunct Instructor of Brass at Cheshire Academy since 2019, maintained a private lesson studio since 2017, and joined The Browning School as trumpet faculty in 2023. She has also served as a musical mentor for Fortissima, an artistic and leadership development program at the Colburn School for high school age young women from underrepresented minorities in classical music. Melissa is a co-founder of Brass Out Loud, an organization dedicated to uplifting the voices of musicians from underrepresented communities. Melissa is a Bach/Conn-Selmer trumpet artist. Her hobbies include reading, running, and roller skating.