Biography
Dr. Jasmine “Jazzie” Pigott began her musical journey by accidentally choosing the trombone, but her obsession with the VeggieTales theme song made the tuba inevitable. She switched instruments at age 10, spending her first year balancing the massive horn sideways in her lap. That early persistence shaped the artist she is today: a performer, composer, educator, and advocate committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians of color and elevating Black music styles and composers in classical spaces through telling her own story. Her work aims to create inclusive concert experiences—on stage, in the audience, and on the program.
A trailblazer in her field, Dr. Pigott became the first Black woman to place at the International Leonard Falcone Festival (2016) and, in 2024, the first to earn a D.M.A. in tuba performance from the Peabody Conservatory. Her career milestones include earning the Outstanding Young Alumni Award for Ithaca College (2025), winning the Peabody Conservatory’s 2022 Yale Gordon Competition, placing first Michigan State University’s Running Start Competition for her project commissioning new works in Black musical styles for the tuba—later released on her 2022 EP Revolution: The Next Generation of Tuba Music—and co-founding the Chromatic Brass Collective, dedicated to women and non-binary brass players of color. She also founded the COVID-19 Black All Star Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble, a virtual project connecting young Black low-brass players nationwide during the pandemic.
As a performer, Dr. Pigott is known for blending virtuosity with genre-crossing repertoire that challenges traditional tuba recital norms. She has appeared as concerto soloist with the Rockville Brass Band, Brass Band of Central Illinois, Georgia Tech Symphony Orchestra, and others; completed residencies at numerous institutions such as Western Michigan University and UNC Greensboro; and toured internationally in Colombia and Costa Rica. In addition to her individual performances, she actively performs and presents at conferences. Her past conference appearances include: the International Women’s Brass Conference (IWBC, 2022 and 2025), International Tuba Euphonium Association (ITEA, 2023, 2024, and 2025), and the National Association for Music Education (NAfME, 2022).
Her work as a composer and arranger spans orchestra, band, chamber ensembles, and solo works, often integrating Black musical idioms into contemporary classical writing. Highlights include Against All Odds (Chromatic Brass Collective, 2022), recorded by Summit Brass; Midnight Escape (Palisade Trumpet Collective, 2023); and her spoken-word tuba works Gateways, Foundations, and Reflections, performed at major festivals and venues including the Baltimore Museum of Art. Her first work for ensemble and spoken word,Roots Torn, Routes Chosen: A Story of Black Migration was composed and premiered in 2024.
Dr. Pigott is currently Adjunct Professor of Tuba at Rowan University and teaches at the annual Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA National Festival. She has previously served on faculty at the Peabody Preparatory, Hofstra University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Ohio University. She holds degrees from Ithaca College (B.M.), Michigan State University (M.M.), and the Peabody Conservatory (D.M.A.), where her teachers included Velvet Brown, Phil Sinder, Dr. David Earll, and Dr. Justin Benavidez.
For more information on Dr. Pigott and her projects, upcoming events, and compositions, please visit her website:
www.jasminepigott.com.
