Matt Holman

Hailed by the New York Times as a “conscientious” and “perceptive young trumpeter,” and by the great Fred Hersch as “a creative and thoughtful improviser with a world-class sound,” trumpeter Matt Holman has distinguished himself as a composer, conductor, bandleader and top-tier soloist in many of the leading jazz ensembles of our time. Along with his adventurous chamber-jazz recordings, Holman has performed and/or recorded with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Fred Hersch’s Leaves of Grass, Bang on a Can’s Asphalt Orchestra, the Joel Harrison Large Ensemble, the JC Sanford Orchestra, New York Voices, Kenneth Salters Haven, the Anna Webber Quartet, Matt Ulery’s Loom, Andrew Rathbun and more. Holman has also composed and arranged works for Stefon Harris, Jane Monheit, Marvin Stamm and university ensembles worldwide.

Holman’s 2013 debut When Flooded (Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records), an ambitious and evocative project with his five-piece Diversion Ensemble, was awarded four stars by Down Beat. The album’s “richly orchestrated tapestries of sound and beautifully developed melodic ideas,” noted Hot House, draw “inspiration from a large gamut of musical sources that stretch far beyond jazz.” Not for nothing does the trumpeter cite Wayne Shorter, Shostakovich and Sigur Rós as key influences. His 2017 follow-up, The Tenth Muse (New Focus Recordings), finds contemporary relevance in the ancient Greek love poetry of Sappho. The album features Holman in an inspired quartet with reedist Sam Sadigursky, vibraphonist Chris Dingman and pianist Bobby Avey.

Holman has earned numerous awards including the International Trumpet Guild’s Jazz Improvisation Competition, the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, and the BMI Foundation’s 13th annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission. An emerging scholar, he received the Institute of Jazz Studies’ Morroe Berger-Benny Carter Jazz Research Fellowship in 2016 to research the work of composer/reedist Jimmy Giuffre. Holman served as Artistic Director of New York Youth Symphony Jazz for six seasons and currently teaches as adjunct faculty at Manhattan School of Music and Hunter College.