School of Music welcomes Cristina “Trinity” Vélez-Justo; new Assistant Professor of Music and Film and Media Scoring Certificate Director

Cristina "Trinity" Vélez-Justo (they/she) will begin as assistant professor of music and film and media scoring certificate director. Trinity is a multi-hyphenate creative who engages with music, sound design, tactile arts, and visual media. Through their business, ReelScoring, L.L.C., Trinity composes music and designs audio for visual and interactive media as well as provides mentorship and independent education in media scoring and production. Through film festivals, professional media organizations (e.g., The Atlanta Film Society), and academic institutions, Trinity educates filmmakers on the effect/affect of media music/audio, business essentials for creatives, and how to successfully work with a composer. Their work has premiered at South By Southwest (SXSW), Tribeca, and Cucalorus among many other festivals, and has been exhibited at the Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, the Levine Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the US Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Other works can be found on Hulu [e.g., Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie (2018)] and Amazon Prime [e.g., The Farmhand (2019) and My Father’s Brothers (2019)]. Trinity has won myriad awards for Best Score and Best Orchestration for their scores, including The Talk (short, 2022), Dreg (2021), Saving Jake (short, 2020), The Farmhand, My Father’s Brothers, and Splash! (2017), an animated short they transcribed into a live-to-picture performance experience for wind ensemble and symphony orchestra. 

After receiving a B.A. Music at UNC-Chapel Hill and M.F.A. Film Music Composition at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), Trinity pursued an internship through the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation in Los Angeles. During and after the internship, Trinity worked with the 2017 Television Governor of Music and the acclaimed composers of Star Trek: Discovery, Cloud Atlas, and Run Lola Run. Though the L.A. experience was fulfilling and educational in understanding mainstream production dynamics, timelines, and processes, they felt compelled to return to the east coast to teach and pursue their craft as a sound designer and music composer full-time. Before arriving at UGA, Trinity taught at UNCSA, and later at the Ohio Media School in Columbus, Ohio. 

As an academic practitioner, Trinity’s interdisciplinary research bridges the gap between the theory and practice of media music. Research topics include music theory and cognition, timbre, pop music (with a focus in hip-hop), cinema and ludomusicology, ethnic and cultural studies, critical race theory, and women and gender studies. Trinity’s current project (as part of their dissertation) explores embodied empathy generation through narrative immersion and spatialization. Inspired by their mother’s last words, the multimedia piece, The Embodied Myth: Good Girls Shall Not Suffer, addresses the socio-historical oppression and trauma experienced by Puerto Rican women that is generationally passed down via spiritual practice and embodiment. The piece will tentatively premiere in Fall 2026 as part of their final D.M.A. Composition recital at The Ohio State University.

Apart from admiring the complexities in/of Nature with their spouse and pittie pup, Trinity is an avid gamer (both video and tabletop), enjoys making jewelry and accessories out of polymer clay, and revels in culinary arts and mixology; concocting recipes with organic ingredients from their garden.