Trumpeter, composer and Doctor of Musical Arts, Jonathan
Saraga, has received thirty international musical awards, grants
and/or commissions over the past fifteen years. He won the
International Trumpet Guild Jazz Solo Competition in 2007
and competed as a finalist in the 2009 Carmine Caruso
International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition. He has been
selected for four intensive and/or residency programs including
the 2011 School for Improvisational Music Summer Intensive
Program, the 2015 Banff International Summer Intensive
Program in Jazz and Creative Music, the 2019 Banff Early Fall
Musicians in Residence program and the 2021 Chashama
ChaNorth Artist in Residence program. Additional residency
related accolades include finalist status in the 2021 Haleakala
National Park Artist in Residence program and waitlist status
for the 2021 Millay Colony of the Art’s Core Residency program. Jonathan has also competed as a finalist in three jazz-trumpet vacancy auditions: the 2011 Juilliard Artist Diploma program, the 2020 Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra’s 4th trumpet vacancy and the 2021 U.S. Navy Band Commodores’ jazz trumpet vacancy.
Jonathan received the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award in 2016, was selected as a finalist in the 2019 Chamber Music America New Jazz Work’s grant competition, as a semi-
finalist in the 2021 Unsigned Only Music Competition and received a total of five Semi-Finalist selections and one Honorable-Mention selection in the International Songwriting Competition between 2016 and 2017. In 2020, Saraga was chosen to present at the Association for Popular Music Education conference in Edinburgh Scotland, and at the International Society for Improvised Music conference in Melbourne, Australia. He has received Outstanding Performance and Outstanding Arrangement Downbeat Student Music Awards (2020 & 2021)
and was selected to participate in the 2020/21 BMI Jazz Composers Workshop. Jonathan has also received commissions and/or grants from the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers, United States Artists, the University of Colorado Boulder Music Advisory Board, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, the Actors Fund/Local 802 Musicians Union, the
Jazz Foundation of America, the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, and the Recording Academy/MusiCares.
Dr. Saraga has played in internationally acclaimed/award-winning ensembles such as the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, the Birdland Big Band, The Mingus Big Band, Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, and the Jimmy Greene Big Band, Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly of Shadows Orchestra, the Terraza Big Band, the Valery Ponomarev Big Band, Manuel Valera’s New Cuban Express Big Band, the Jihye Lee Jazz Orchestra, the Erica Seguine/Shannon Baker Jazz Orchestra and the Migiwa Miyajima Jazz Orchestra, as well as ensembles led by Tyshawn Sorey, Steve Coleman, and Henry Cole.
Links:
Website: www.jonathansaraga.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jonathansaraga