New Beginnings: Part 1 (Destinations)

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.

Website: www.jonathansaraga.com