Charles Lazarus

Closing Concert

Trumpeter Charles Lazarus is a multi-faceted performer who has charted a unique course over his career including tenures in several of the best- known brass ensembles in the world, including Canadian Brass, Dallas Brass, Meridian Arts Ensemble, and the Minnesota Orchestra.

As a soloist, composer and bandleader, Lazarus has created four original crossover orchestral showsfeaturing him as soloist with his jazz ensemble: “A Night in the Tropics”, “American Riffs”, “Fly Me to the Moon”, and most recently “The New American Songbook” featuring the Grammy Awarding-winning familyquintet The Steeles. On “Merry & Bright”, his annual program of fresh takes on holiday favorites, Charles isjoined by vocalists and an all-brass big band.

In 2015, Lazarus premiered Steve Heitzeg’s concerto “American Nomad”, which will be recorded live in January 2019 by the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä. Lazarus’s composition “A Perfect Square”, paired with Michael Hall’s book of the same name, was recently made into a children’s animated short film.

Charles made his Carnegie Hall solo debut with the New York String Orchestra at the age of 19 while still astudent at The Juilliard School in New York. Since then, he has soloed with dozens of orchestras and ensembles throughout North America and has performed and taught master classes in every U.S. state, Canada, South America, throughout Europe and Asia, and currently serves on the faculty of the University ofMinnesota School of Music. He’s been a member of several of the best-known brass ensembles in the world, including Canadian Brass, Dallas Brass and Meridian Arts Ensemble, and has performed with Empire Brass, London Brass and the New York Philharmonic Principal Brass. Rounding out this eclectic experience,he has also performed his original compositions at the Montreal and Ottawa international jazz festivals,opened for Tony Bennett, and performed with Barry White and Joe Williams.

Lazarus’s four solo recordings, Solo Settings, Zabava, Merry & Bright, and Lovejoy showcase his wide-ranging talent and feature collaborations with diverse composers, arrangers and performers.