About
Matthew Vangjel is the Assistant Professor of Trumpet at the University of Missouri-Kansas City starting in the Fall of 2024. Prior to his appointment at UMKC, he taught trumpet, brass pedagogy and literature, and coached chamber music at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge for nine years. He also held positions at the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. Vangjel is a passionate music educator and frequently spends his free time teaching and studying pedagogy. He enjoys spending his summers teaching at festivals and camps and has done so in the U.S., China, and Costa Rica.
In addition to his passion for education, 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 lesser-known works.
From 2014-2023, he was a member of the
Mirari Brass Quintet (Ariel Artists) with whom he maintained an active touring schedule both in the United States and abroad. Vangjel can be heard on Mirari’s second album,
renewed, reused, recycled, released in 2018, and on most episodes of their podcast,
Mirari Unmuted. Vangjel is also a member of the internationally acclaimed
Fountain City Brass Band (FCBB), a British-style brass band based in Kansas City, MO. He has toured extensively with the group and can be heard as solo flugelhorn on all of the FCBB albums and as a featured soloist on
Over the Rainbow and
Celtic Impressions.
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.
