Mike Zonshine

Bio

Mike Zonshine is a freelance trumpet performer and educator based in Los Angeles.  At the age of 22, Mike Zonshine joined the Honolulu (Hawaii) Symphony Orchestra as Principal Trumpet, a job he held for almost a decade. After relocating to Los Angeles, he has become an active freelancer in the Los Angeles music scene, performing in many live events and studio settings.  

Over the years, he has taught extensively. He co-founded the University of Hawaii Trumpet Ensemble, quickly becaming an ensemble involving the entire trumpet community of the island of Oahu. Mike also taught for five summers at the “Boston University Tanglewood Institute” where he was the brass coach for the “Young Artist’s Orchestra.” As a Yamaha Performing Artist and Clinician, Mike has given various recitals and master classes at many of the top music institutions in the US as well as countless master classes for high school, and middle school, band programs. Mike has been on faculty at Cal Poly Pomona, teaching trumpet, an “Introduction To Music” course to non music majors, “Music Appreciation,” and “Brass Pedagogy.” 

Mike currently teaches at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, the Los Angeles County High School for The Arts, and maintains an active private teaching studio.  At Colburn, in addition to teaching trumpet at the Community School, Mike co-directs the brass chamber program (which meets weekly throughout the academic year), and the Los Angeles Brass Institute (which convenes every summer).

Mike studied at Boston University, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Southern California. His teachers include Boyde Hood, Roger Voisin, James Thompson, Tom Rolfs, and Malcolm McNab.  Mike was twice a part of the Tanglewood Music Center’s famed fellowship program. One of those times, Mike won the Voisin Trumpet Award.