Major: Instrumental Performance
Instrument: Flute
Stamps Ensemble Name: Stamps Woodwind Quintet Class of 2019
Profile:
Alyssa Mena, flute, is majoring in Instrumental Performance at the University of Miami Frost School of Music where she is a Stamps Distinguished Ensemble Scholar and a member of the Stamps Woodwind Quintet, Class of 2019, coached by faculty mentor Robert Weiner. She studies flute privately with Trudy Kane. A native of Miami, Florida she graduated high school from the New World School of the Arts (NWSA). Mena began playing the flute at the age of 11, her first teacher was Lauren Bonavitacola. At age 13 she began studying with Ernesto Fernandez. While at NWSA, and while studying privately with Suzan DeGooyer, Alyssa Mena served as the principal chair from freshman year on. She also participated in the Florida All-State Band and Wind Symphony as well as the Miami Music Project Honors Orchestra where she was principal flute and piccolo for three years.
Mena also participated in the World Youth Wind Symphony at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in the summer of 2013, studying with Jill Heyboer, Virginia Crabtree and Christopher Chaffee. In 2014, she was one of the featured laureate soloists for the NWSA Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition winners’ concert. That same year, Mena also performed as a soloist with the NWSA Wind Ensemble where she performed Joel Puckett’s The Shadow of Sirius.
In 2015, Alyssa Mena received national recognition from the National YoungArts Foundation where she was selected as a YoungArts merit winner in classical flute.
