About this Artist
Praised for his versatility, technical clarity, and keen musical insight, Tito Muñoz is internationally recognized as one of the most gifted conductors of his generation. Following his 10-year tenure as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony, which concluded in the 2023/24 season, he continues his association with the orchestra as Artistic Partner. In the 2025/26 season, he also took up the role of Interim Principal Conductor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, becoming a guest member of its Orchestral Studies faculty.
Tito previously served as Music Director of the Opéra national de Lorraine in France and earlier held assistant conductor positions with The Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Aspen Music Festival.
He has appeared with many of North America’s leading orchestras, including those of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, New York, and Utah, as well as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—making his Carnegie Hall debut with the latter in a sold-out performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana in February 2024. Maintaining a strong international conducting presence, Tito has also worked with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, SWR Symphonieorchester, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, and Royal Philharmonic (London).
The 2025/26 season included debuts with the New Jersey Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, Jenaer Philharmonie, Nürnberger Symphoniker, and Komische Oper Berlin, alongside return appearances with SWR Symphonieorchester and the New York Philharmonic.
A committed advocate for contemporary music, Tito has conducted important premieres of works by Christopher Cerrone, Kenneth Fuchs, Dai Fujikura, Michael Hersch, Adam Schoenberg, Mauricio Sotelo, and Francisco Coll. His close collaboration with Hersch has included world premieres of On the Threshold of Winter (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2014), his Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (2015), I hope we get a chance to visit soon (Ojai and Aldeburgh festivals, 2018), the script of storms (BBC Symphony Orchestra, London, 2020), and and we, each (2024). In March 2025, Tito led the American Composers Orchestra in world premieres by Tomàs Peire Serrate, Clarice Assad, and Edmar Castañeda at Carnegie Hall.
A passionate educator, Tito has led performances at the Eastman School of Music, Aspen Music Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, Kent/Blossom Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, New England Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto), and University of Texas at Austin and of the New World Symphony and National Repertory Orchestra as well as a nine-city tour with the St. Olaf College Orchestra.
Born in Queens, NY, Tito began his musical training as a violinist in New York’s public schools. He continued violin studies with Daniel Phillips at Queens College (CUNY) before turning to conducting at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, working with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin. He won the Aspen Music Festival’s 2005 Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and 2006 Aspen Conducting Prize, serving as the festival’s Assistant Conductor in 2007 and later returning as a guest conductor.
Tito made his professional conducting debut in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, invited by Leonard Slatkin as a participant in the National Conducting Institute. That same year, he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut at the Blossom Music Festival. He was awarded the 2009 Mendelssohn Scholarship sponsored by Kurt Masur and the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Foundation in Leipzig and was a prizewinner in the 2010 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition in Frankfurt.