This Black History Month, we recognize Elissa Carmona, singer, songwriter, Air Force veteran, and winner of the 2024 Alumni of Distinction award from Mercy University. Born in the Bronx but raised initially on Staten Island with frequent family visits to her native borough, Carmona moved back to Morrisania in high school for family and affordability after getting pregnant with her daughter. She eventually took on a community role, helping with park cleanups, civic engagement, music programs, and grant-writing that exposed her to Morrisania’s special historical relationship with jazz.

Believing that art offers every generation the ability to empower their own voices, she started the Morrisania Band Project in 2016, an award-winning musical collective that adds vibrancy to NYC through music, community engagement, and social initiatives. Carmona is the “admin”, the fundraiser, the bandleader, the mama. With the Morrisania Band Project, she delivers soul-stirring tributes to legendary funk, rock, and soul artists in venues in the Bronx, NYC and nationwide, including the Bronx Music Heritage Center Lab in the Southern Boulevard district. The Band also creates original music that raises awareness about gun violence, disaster relief, and sickle cell disease.

Carmona’s band has received multiple honors, winning Ponce Bank’s Best Cover Band of the Bronx competition in 2022 and 2023, headlining at NYC DOT Summer Street festivals and the Bronx and Queens Night Markets, and receiving commissions from the Bronx Council on the Arts. Carmona is a 2023 artist-in-residence at William Hodson Senior Center in Morrisania, widely recognized as the first in the U.S. The Morrisania Band Project embarks on the 2024 Soul Odyssey, a series of live NYC concerts and their second mini-tour in New Orleans. Trained at NYC’s famed Music & Art High School, Elissa holds a MSW degree in nonprofit management, and is a member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.

We applaud soul singer-activist Elissa Carmona for her gift of innovation, talent, connection to community, and for being a cultural ambassador for beautiful Morrisania and the Bronx.