March 2015 Winner: Geoff Gallante

One of the most celebrated young musicians in the world today, fourteen-year-old Geoff Gallante found his older brother's trumpet at age four and has since performed on prominent stages and alongside distinguished artists all over the United States as church soloist; featured jazz performer; national anthem performer; and acclaimed soloist with concert bands, brass bands, and pops orchestras.

Gallante has not only performed in 34 states; he has played with five different US military ensembles and with various nationally acclaimed groups. By the age of six, he had already garnered guest soloist engagements with such groups as the Louisville Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Brass Quintet, among others. As a National Anthem performer, Gallante has appeared at sixteen pro-sports venues across the country, seven MLB stadiums, eight NBA arenas, and one NHL arena. At six years old, he became the youngest instrumentalist ever to perform at either the White House or the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Gallante's network TV appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, NBC's Today Show and the CBS Early Show.

In addition to solo engagements with professional pops orchestras in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Illinois, Indiana, and New Jersey, Gallante has soloed with some of America's finest symphonic bands. Most notably, he has performed with the US Naval Academy Concert Band, Ridgewood (New Jersey) Concert Band, Allentown (Pennsylvania) Band, Wheaton (Illinois) Municipal Band, Compton Heights (St. Louis) Concert Band, Ames (Iowa) Municipal Band, Plano (Texas) Community Band, Naples (Florida) Concert Band, Fond Du Lac (Wisconsin) Symphonic Band, Northwinds Symphonic Band (Georgia), and Metropolitan (Boston) Wind Sym­phony. In 2012, at age eleven, Gallante was honored with a guest soloist appearance at the annual convention of the Association of Concert Bands in Poughkeepsie, New York. In July of 2014, he also had the distinction of performing as guest soloist at the Texas Bandmasters Convention, the largest of its kind in the world.
In the jazz realm, Gallante is comfortable playing all styles, from traditional New Orleans style to small-group straight-ahead jazz and classic big band and swing. As a 'traditional' jazz player, he is a member of the DC-based award-winning Capital Focus Jazz Band. As a big band trumpeter, he plays in the Blues Alley Youth Jazz Orchestra. The former is geared toward college-age musicians, and the latter toward high school musicians; Gallante's talent has obviously trumped the age requirements of those two groups, as both made exceptions to welcome him at just nine years old.

As a straight-ahead jazz performer, Gallante has shared the stage with such jazz icons as Maynard Ferguson, Dick Hyman, and Bucky Pizzarelli, as well as a host of other distinguished jazz musicians, including Earl Klugh, Kevin Mahogany, Cyrus Chestnut, Harry Allen, James Carter, Warren Vache, Allen Vache, Chris Botti, Christian McBride, Etienne Charles, Claudio Roditi, and John Clayton. Gallante has performed at such prominent jazz venues as Andy's (Chicago), Blues Alley (DC), Metropolitan Room and Iridium (NYC), Scullers (Boston), Shanghai Jazz (New Jersey), and Herb Alpert's Vibrato Grill Jazz in LA. Gallante says that his coolest gig to date has been as a featured performer for the 2012 edition of the 'Jazz Fest at Sea' cruise event.

During the 2013 - 2014 concert season, Gallante performed as featured jazz artist in New Mexico, Delaware, California, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, and New York City; as concert band soloist in Michigan, Florida, Texas, and New York; and as brass band soloist in Tennessee.
Gallante is in his first year of high school in Alexandria, Virginia.

As the March 2015 Young Artist Award recipient, he will receive a one-year complimentary membership to ITG. Congratulations, Geoff!