The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), comprising 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, has been the Jazz at Lincoln Center resident orchestra since 1988 and spends over a third of the year on tour across the world. Featured in all aspects of Jazz atLincoln Center’s programming, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs and lead seducational events in New York, across the U.S., and around the globe; in concert halls; dance venues; jazz clubs; public parks; and with symphony orchestras, ballet troupes, local students, and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists. Under Music Director Wynton Marsalis, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performs a vast repertoire, from rare historic compositions to Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works, including compositions and arrangements by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and current and former Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Ted Nash, Victor Goines, Sherman Irby, Chris Crenshaw, and Carlos Henriquez. For more information on Jazz at Lincoln Center, please visit www.jazz.org.

WYNTON MARSALIS
Wynton Marsalis(Music Director, Trumpet) is the Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center(JALC). Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, he is the son of renowned jazz pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis, Jr. Marsalis was gifted his first trumpet at age six by Al Hirt; soon thereafter, he began playing in New Orleans’ famed Fairview Baptist Church Bandled by banjoist Danny Barker. However, it wasn’t until he turned twelve that Marsalis began to formally train on the trumpet and perform in bands throughout the city, from the New Orleans Philharmonic and New Orleans Youth Orchestra to funk bands, concert bands, and small jazz ensembles. As a teenager, his passion for music rapidly escalated. In 1979, at the age of seventeen, Marsalis moved to New York City to study classical trumpet at The Juilliard School. Yet he quickly entrenched himself in New York’s effervescent jazz scene, launching his career with the legendary Art Blakey &The Jazz Messengers. At just nineteen, Marsalis hit the road with his own band—he has been touring the world ever since. From 1981 to the time of this writing, he has performed 5,328 concerts in 856 distinct cities and 66 countries around the world.

Wynton Marsalis’ core beliefs and foundation for living are based on the principles of jazz. He promotes individual creativity (improvisation), collective cooperation (swing), gratitude and good manners (sophistication), and facing adversity with persistent optimism (the blues).