Colorado's newest Grammy voter: "I'm excited to get a seat at the table"
For more than three decades, Joshua Trinidad, 41, has played the trumpet, feeling it has nourished him and saying it is now "part of my DNA."
Now, his lifelong love affair with the brass instrument is paying off in a different way, as Trinidad, a married father of two, found out last June that he was accepted as a voting member of the Recording Academy and would be voting for Grammy winners.
He will be in Los Angeles on Sunday for the Grammy Awards and will take part in the voting process.
"I'm really excited just to be around the energy. It's something I've seen since I was a little kid," said Trinidad, who was raised in Brighton but now lives in Denver and works for Denver Public Schools in an administrative role.
He has played the trumpet for audiences in Denver and around the world, formed bands and recorded albums and videos.
He is still trying to grasp his new role as a Grammy voter.
"There's been a lot of times in my musical career where I felt like 'I'm not supposed to be here' or 'this is a stretch do I really belong here?''' he said. "And those thoughts have gone through my mind a lot. It's taken a lot of hard work to get here and I'm excited to get a seat at the table."
While in elementary school, a music store shared musical instruments for students to try out. Trinidad was primarily interested in the saxophone.
"I told my friend to stay away from the sax - it's mine," Trinidad said. "But when I went to pick it up no sound came out and the guy was like, 'you're not playing it right.' I looked over and saw the trumpet and thought it was cool looking and let me try that. Within five seconds I was able to make a sound out of it and it was perfect."
It was love at first note.
In the last several years, friends who were members of the Recording Academy, which hands out the Grammys, contacted Trinidad and suggested that they wanted to nominate him to be a voting member of the academy. He filled out a 10-page application outlining the work he has done around music, his tours, and his contributions.
Then, after waiting months, last June he received an email from the Grammys notifying him he had been approved to be a voting member.
"To know I have a voice in the process, it's so great," he said.
He said during an interview this week at his Denver home.
"I wasn't sure it was going to happen," he expressed.
Trinidad told CBS News Colorado he could remember watching the Grammys on TV when he was a young boy.
"I was on the floor watching the TV and my dad said, 'you could do that one day, oh that would be cool,''' he said. "And I remember my dad saying that to me."
After finding out he would be voting for this year's Grammy winners, Trinidad soon learned the process was "exhausting."
He said he expected to listen to perhaps 50 to 60 albums and vote on them. Instead, he had to listen to about 1,000 entries per category.
"This is going to take longer than I thought," he said. "It took weeks to give people a good listen and good consideration."
Trinidad said as a voting member of the academy, he was allowed to cast his vote in the major categories like Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best New Artist.
And he quickly learned that being a Grammy judge meant a whole new set of friends.
"I remember waking up to 100 to 150 emails every day," Trinidad said.
Emails from hopeful nominees who had learned he was a voting member.
"There were literally hundreds (of emails) every day," he said, from artists seeking his approval.
As he prepares to head to L.A. for the pre-parties and the ceremony itself, Trinidad said he was most jazzed about meeting some of his musical idols like legendary Cuban-American trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who he is planning to have lunch with before the Grammys.
"I'm really excited to connect with some of my heroes," said Trinidad.
For the Sunday night show, Trinidad said he was looking forward to seeing Billy Joel perform along with Travis Scott, U-2 and Billie Eilish.
Trinidad planned to take a special trumpet with him to Los Angeles that was custom made in Denver, in case he gets the chance to "jam" with other musicians.
He sees being a Grammy voter as a step toward a larger goal.
"I'm very grateful to be at the table but now that I'm here, I'm going to take total advantage of what its going to take to go to that next level," he said. "I think I can get a really good album and do this maybe next year so my goal is eventually I can be one of the nominees and that would be wonderful."