Dr. Matthew Vangjel has accepted our Assistant Professor of Trumpet position and will begin in the Fall of 2024. Matt comes to us from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he has been an Associate Professor teaching trumpet, brass pedagogy and literature, and chamber music for the last nine years. Prior to his time at LSU, he held positions at the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.
In addition to his passion for teaching, Vangjel is an active performer locally and nationally. Since the Fall of 2019, Vangjel has served as the principal trumpet of the Mobile Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Meridian Symphony Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, and the Kansas City Symphony. He has been called upon as a featured soloist with the Fort Smith Symphony, Northland Symphony Orchestra, and the Kansas City Civic Orchestra. His first solo album, Still and Quiet Places, was released by Summit Records in October of 2019, and he is currently working on a solo video project of works he commissioned.
Vangjel studied at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (DMA), the University of Michigan (MM), and James Madison University (BM-Music Education). His primary teachers include Keith Benjamin, Bill Campbell, Jim Kluesner, and Nancy Taylor. He loves making music with his trumpet-playing wife and hiking with his family.