Wynton Marsalis

Artist Picture

Wynton Marsalis

composer/trumpet

Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, and educator, and a leading advocate of American culture. He has recorded more than 70 jazz and classical albums that have garnered him nine Grammy Awards. In 1983, Marsalis became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz Grammy Awards in the same year; he repeated this feat in 1984. In 1997, he became the first jazz artist to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in Music for his oratorio Blood on the Fields, which was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has created and performed an expansive range of music from quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras, and tap dance to ballet, expanding the vocabulary for jazz and classical music with a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers. Always swinging, Marsalis blows his trumpet with a clear tone, a depth of emotion, and a unique, virtuosic style derived from an encyclopedic range of trumpet techniques. When you hear Marsalis play, you’re hearing life being played out through music. Marsalis’s core beliefs and foundation for living are based on the principals of jazz. He promotes individual creativity (improvisation), collective cooperation (swing), gratitude and good manners (sophistication), and faces adversity with persistent optimism (the blues). With his evolved humanity and through his selfless work, Marsalis has elevated the quality of human engagement for individuals, social networks, and cultural institutions throughout the world.