Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, he is the son of jazz pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis, Jr. Marsalis started practicing trumpet at age 6. As a child, he played in New Orleans traditional marching bands, funk groups, concert bands, symphonic orchestras, and jazz ensembles. Just one year after moving to New York City to attend The Juilliard School at age 17, Marsalis joined the legendary Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers.

In 1981, Marsalis formed a quintet and began touring worldwide—and he hasn’t stopped since. He has rekindled widespread international interest in jazz over the past four decades vis-à-vis performances, recordings, educational programs, books, curricula, and relentless public advocacy.

Marsalis performs and composes across the entire spectrum of jazz; he has written chamber music and symphonic works for revered classical ensembles across the US and abroad. He is continuously inspired to experiment in an ever-widening palette of forms and concepts that constitute some of the most advanced thinking in modern jazz and in American music on the broad scale. His body of original work includes (but is not limited to) over 600 songs and movements, 11 dance scores, 13 suites, four symphonies, two chamber pieces, two string quartets, a jazz oratorio, a fanfare, and concertos for violin, tuba, trumpet, orchestra, and now, cello. In 2026, he will also produce his fifth symphony—inspired by the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Marsalis was appointed Messenger of Peace by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan (2001), awarded The National Medal of Arts (2005), and The National Medal of Humanities (2016). In 2009, France bestowed him with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; on his 62nd birthday in October 2023, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale for Music— Japan’s most prestigious prize for the arts. He has received honorary doctorates from 44 of the country’s (and world’s) top academic institutions including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and Tulane University in his hometown of New Orleans.

Wynton Marsalis’s core beliefs are based on jazz fundamentals: freedom and individual creativity (improvisation); collective action and good manners (swing); and acceptance, gratitude and resilience (the blues). Marsalis believes that music has the power to elevate our quality of life and lead us to a higher level of consciousness.

Marsalis presently serves as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School, and President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.