Teacher Profile: Jomar Cruz

About Jomar Cruz

Jomar Cruz is a classically trained and stylistically exposed cellist, collaborator, and teacher. He is a 2022 Master of Arts graduate of UCF, and now teaches cello as well as beginning piano. He studied cello performance with David Bjella, Laurel Stanton, and Si-Yan Li. He also learned and practiced performing contemporary music as a founding member of the UCF New Music Ensemble with Dr. Thad Anderson from 2017-2022. During his undergraduate and graduate degrees, he has worked with dozens of student composers and helped premiere many of their works, and has helped give positive feedback towards his undergraduate peers in their weekly studio performances.

From helping in string camps and assisting his undergraduate peers with cello and piano, Jomar makes sure progress is fueled by the students' own creativity and musical knowledge, at any level of proficiency. He also understands what bad practicing habits feel like and how they develop, and wants to make sure the student can develop their instrumental skills without discomfort or worry.

Jomar has enjoyed playing cello on various musical productions with the UCF Symphony Orchestra, and an opera more recently with Opera Orlando. He hopes to meet and work with many more creative artists and groups in the contemporary music world and dreams of recording music scored for film and video games. Born in Puerto Rico, he holds much admiration towards the contributions Spanish cellists have brought to current cello repertoire standards, especially Pablo Casals, Gaspar Cassado, and Osvaldo Golijov. He enjoys digging in as deep as possible into the music that he performs, and seeks to teach others in a welcoming environment that suits the needs of each student.