Cristina Trinity Vélez-Justo is a public speaker and educator, and an award-winning composer for film and media through her business ReelScoring, LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. She relocated from Los Angeles in 2018 after finishing the Television Academy Foundation Internship in Music and working as an assistant to accomplished film and television composers. Through film festivals, Trinity educates filmmakers on the psychology and significance of music in film and how to successfully work with a composer. Trinity also speaks internationally about networking in a disconnected world, and diversity and inclusion in the industry and creative classroom. She is an instructor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in the MFA Film Music Composition program.

Trinity’s work has premiered at 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, and the US Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Other works can be found on Hulu (Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie) and Amazon Prime (The Farmhand). She has won awards for Best Score and Best Orchestration for her scores The Farmhand, Saving Jake, My Father’s Brothers (a war documentary feature currently on the festival circuit) and Splash!, an animated short she transcribed into a live-to-picture performance experience for wind ensemble and symphony orchestra. Splash! was performed live at UNC-Charlotte, UNC School of the Arts, with the Western Piedmont Youth Symphony Orchestra and Raleigh All-State Band.

Trinity is an active member of the Charlotte film community – she was featured as “A Woman To Watch” by SouthPark Magazine in 2012 and nominated and selected as a 2019 and 2021 Featured Artist through ArtSí, an organization that supports Latinx creatives. She is an avid educator in cultivating strong and healthy professional relationships; leading workshops in networking and career development for creatives.

In the fall of 2021, she will be starting her Ph.D. in Music Theory with a specialization in Cognitive and Behavioral sciences. Her research will focus on music in media, and how it influences and may potentially change viewers’ perceptions on gender and race in association with media.

Awards

School Presentations/Workshops

Reach Beyond the Stars: Pursuing Your Dreams -Trinity speaks about her role in the entertainment biz and how a marginalized person/woman of color can succeed in a competitive industry. You are worth all you aspire to be — follow your passion and reach beyond the stars!

Adult Presentations/Workshops – Festivals & Universities

Networking 101: The Extroverted Introvert – Trinity discusses the art and science of “working a room” as an introvert to help you build strong and healthy professional relationships. A strong network leads to a successful career — no one likes to celebrate alone, so let’s grow together!

“A Coconut Could Fall on Your Head” So Live the Life You Have Imagined – Trinity speaks about the three lessons she learned from her mother when pursuing her dreams. Following her mother’s favorite quote by Henry David Thoreau “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined,” she speaks about self-worth, the difference between sacrifice and investment, and embracing what life has to offer by challenging yourself and taking the necessary risks to live the life you have imagined.

Diversity in the Creative Classroom/Diversity in the Arts – Trinity discusses approaches, using concepts from childhood development studies, that educators can take to develop a more diverse and inclusive learning environment for marginalized students.

What’s That Sound?!: The Psychological Role of Sound and Music in Media – Ever get a jingle stuck in your head? Or get on the edge of your seat when the music gets spooky? Trinity shows how sound and music draw us into visual media and the role they play in creating engaging content: marketing, entertainment, or narrative/documentary storytelling.

Website

Availability and Honorariums