Professor of Practice, Director of Chamber Music
Email: smunoz@holycross.edu
BM, New England Conservatory
MM, Eastman School of Music
DMA, The Juilliard School
Biography
Chilean violist Sergio Muñoz Leiva is an advocate for dialogue, collaboration, and community building, which he realizes in music through his love for chamber music and education.
A curious and versatile performer, Dr. Muñoz Leiva is active in chamber music, solo, and orchestral settings. His repertoire spans from early Baroque to music that is fresh off the press, performed on both modern and baroque viola. He has premiered works by Paola Prestini and Nico Muhly, and has collaborated with artists such as Kinan Azmeh, Dinuk Wijeratne, Masaaki Suzuki, Rachel Podger, Monica Huggett, Robert Mealy, Daniel S. Lee, Emi Ferguson, Laurie Smukler, Catherine Cho, Natasha Brofsky, Areta Zhulla, Carol Rodland, Kim Kashkashian, Mikhail Kopelman, Renée Jolles, and Steven Doane. He is a member of the Providence Baroque Orchestra and has performed as a guest artist with A Far Cry, Palaver Strings, Carnegie Hall’s Link Up Orchestra, the United Nations Chamber Music Society, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and the Chile Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared in venues such as Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Tully Hall, and Carnegie Hall in New York; and the Municipal Theater in Santiago de Chile. His musical mentors are Penelope Knuth, David Holland, Dimitri Murrath, Kim Kashkashian, and Carol Rodland. He is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and holds degrees from the New England Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School. His doctoral dissertation is entitled “Paul Hindemith’s Harmonic System and Its Application to a Structural Analysis of the Schwanendreher Variations.” His research interests include musical analysis, Latin American folk music, and music as a catalyst for community building.
Dr. Muñoz Leiva joined the Department of Music of College of the Holy Cross as Interim Director of Chamber Music in September 2022. He also currently serves as Music Theory Instructor at Project STEP in Boston. Previous teaching appointments include serving as Studio Teaching Assistant to Carol Rodland at The Juilliard School, as Instructor of Viola for Non-Majors at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester, and as Teaching Artist at City College Academy of the Arts in New York.