Pedro Cruz Montesino, known professionally as Cruz Monty and styled Cruzmonty, is a Dominican singer-songwriter, producer, and actor born in Santiago de los Caballeros on 4 February 1983. He first became widely known as the voice and main writer of the parody group «Trío Mi Amorch», and has since built a career as a romantic songwriter, a composer for other artists, and a stage actor.

Early years and television contests

Cruz Monty describes himself as a shy, introverted child; his father is a musician who also draws and paints, and he began with drawing before turning to music. At ten or twelve, inspired by the boy bands of the period, he formed a vocal and dance group with childhood friends, first called «Los Chicos» and later «On Stage», which appeared on children's programmes on Santiago television. He dates his professional music career to about 2000, when he left school, working with rock-influenced musicians in his first years while writing romantic pop songs.

He was a finalist in the Pepsi «Gira del Sabor» talent search on Telesistema and later won the Dominican selection for «Latin American Idol», together with Marta Heredia and Laura Lebrón. In Costa Rica the three Dominicans finished among the final twenty of the local auditions, and Heredia went on to the final stage in Argentina. He has said that the show's producers asked him for a sad personal story before auditioning and that he had none to tell.

Film and Trío Mi Amorch

Cruz Monty studied film direction, cinematography, and screenwriting at the Instituto de Cine de Santiago and worked as second assistant director on Manny Pérez's «La Soga», where he also took a small acting role. He later appeared in «Trópico de Sangre». He stepped away from camera work around 2012 or 2013, after finding the market unrewarding, and returned to music.

The trio began when the guitarist and composer Óscar Almonte and Fellé Vega accompanied him as a soloist. According to the Centro León, «Trío Mi Amorch» was formed at the end of 2012. When a venue owner asked for something lighter, Cruz Monty wrote a parody of Bruno Mars's «When I Was Your Man», «Cuando yo era tu macho», recorded on a phone and posted to YouTube, where it spread quickly. Further parodies followed, among them versions of «Rude» and «Chucuchá», and the group worked without interruption until 2018, when Almonte moved to the United States. The three have reunited for occasional shows since.

Songwriting and solo work

After the trio, Cruz Monty returned to writing and recording romantic songs under his own name. His 2019 bachata album «Una Sola Cara» includes «Depende de Ti», a duet with Zeo Muñoz. He has recorded the bolero «Traidor» with Wason Brazobán, and has written or collaborated with Joe Veras, Jimmy Bauer, Milly Quezada, and Luis Armando Rivera González; press accounts also credit him with songs for Menudo and Kat DeLuna. He co-wrote «Besito de Algodón» with Pirou Pérez, first as a bossa nova and flamenco blend and then in a salsa version, and in February 2026 released a romantic duet with Rose Mateo, the first song the two had written and recorded together. He has also ventured into merengue with «Piky», after years working away from tropical rhythms.

In 2025 he received his first nomination for Composer and/or Lyricist at the 40th Premios Soberano.

Theatre and other ventures

In 2022 he joined the cast of the musical «Mariposas de Acero», about the Mirabal sisters, co-written by Pablo García, staged at the Teatro Nacional. It was his first stage acting, and he was cast in two roles, an emissary who carries the invitation to a Trujillo party and the university rector who denies Minerva Mirabal entry, the latter voiced after the director rejected his first attempts. A return of the production has since been announced.

Outside music he ran the «Tres Monos Burger Shop» on Avenida 27 de Febrero in Santiago while the trio was active, and, from the pandemic, «Monte Chino», a pizzeria and private catering business named for his surname.

Legacy

Cruz Monty's work spans two audiences: the parodies his trio circulated online in the early 2010s, and a later catalogue of romantic songs, collaborations, and compositions for other artists that earned a Premios Soberano nomination. He has said he wants to be known first as a songwriter who writes from lived experience rather than as an impressionist or comedian.