Laurie Frink Career Grant Winners


2022 Joint Winners: Alexandra Ridout & Jason Charos

Alexandra Ridout

Alexandra Ridout, Jazz Trumpeter, UK, is currently studying her Masters Degree at the Manhattan School of Music. She recently went on European Tour with the Grammy nominated, Blue Note signed all star band Artemis. Alexandra was crowned the winner of the BBC Young Musician Jazz Award 2016 and noted in ‘The shape of jazz to come: who to look out for in 2018’ in Jazzwise magazine. In 2018 Alexandra won The British Jazz Awards ‘Rising Star’ category. In October 2019 Alexandra was named one of ‘London’s Most Influential People’ under 25 and was a Parliamentary Jazz Awards nominee in 2020. Alexandra joined British jazz luminary Clark Tracey’s latest Quintet in 2017 who performed regularly promoting their most recent album ‘No Doubt’. She often performs with ECM artist Kit Downes, and world renowned Jason Brown. She was chosen for the JEN Sisters in Jazz Collegiate Combo 2021. Alexandra released her debut EP ‘Remote Duets’ in 2020. She has featured on various albums. Alexandra fronts her own Quintet, who have recently recorded their debut album. In 2022 she performed in Köln with award winning pianist Pablo Held. Alexandra performed at the Jazz Gallery in New York with Dayna Stephen’s Custom Deluxe. She has been invited to perform at the Festival of New Trumpet Music in NYC 2022.

Jason Charos

Jason Charos is a Miami-based jazz trumpeter. He is a graduate of the Frost School of Music and is currently pursuing a Master of Music at Frost in jazz trumpet, where he serves as a teaching assistant to Brian Lynch. His career highlights include performing with Sammy Figueroa's Latin Jazz Explosion, recording on the GRAMMY Award-winning album The Omni-American Book Club by the Brian Lynch Big Band, and preparing and copying material for a Dave Liebman album of Booker Little's music. Other accolades include winning 2nd place in the 2019 National Trumpet Competition - Jazz Division. In March 2022, Charos recorded his debut album, which is comprised entirely of original music. It was produced by Lynch and will be released on his label Hollistic MusicWorks. The album features performances by Brian Lynch, Dafnis Prieto, Melvin Butler, Carlo De Rosa, and Ludwig Afonso. It is set to release at the end of 2022. 


2020 Winner: Summer Camargo

Summer Camargo, 18, a trumpet player at the Juilliard School, just completed her freshman year of college majoring in Jazz Studies. Summer has been a member of the Grammy Band (2018), the Next Generation Women in Jazz Combo (2019), the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra (2019), and was named a National YoungArts Foundation Merit winner (2017) and Honorable Mention in Jazz Trumpet (2018), as well as Merit winner in Jazz Composition (2018). Summer was Downbeat Magazine’s Outstanding Student Jazz Performance Award recipient (2018). At the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Essentially Ellington Festivals, she received Outstanding Trumpet Soloist Awards; in 2018, Summer won the Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Soloist Award and the Dr. J. Douglas White Student Composition Contest. She was honored to have the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra record her original big band chart, Leap Froggin’. Summer participated in the Vail Jazz Workshop (2018), Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz (2018, 2019), the Monterey Jazz Festival Gala (2019) and played as a guest artist at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala (2019) and the Midwest Clinic (2019). This past year, Summer was honored to be a panelist for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz Congress and joined the Ulysses Owens, Jr. Big Band.


2018 Joint Winners: Giveton Gelin & Erin Mutchler

Giveton Gelin

Pursuing jazz is difficult when you lack an environment to develop in the Bahamas, but since the age of 10, Giveton Gelin (now 18) has taught himself how to play the trumpet simply by emulating what he would hear on his favorite records. Despite years of self-tutelage, it wasn't until he saw double bass player Adrian D'Aguilar playing live that Giveton realized "there was a place for jazz in the Bahamas!" Through this encounter, Giveton was led to take part in music programs abroad such as The Manhattan School of Music Summer Camp Jazz Band, Manhattan School of Music Summer Camp Latin Jazz Band and The Spike Wilner Trio. Giveton has won top positions at both the YoungArts Foundation and the Betty Carter Jazz ahead program, and has received mentoring from some of the world's greatest jazz musicians including Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, Eddie Henderson, Barry Harris, Jason Moran, Ralph Peterson, Ambrose Akinmusire and Roy Hargrove. He now continues to excel in his musical growth finishing his first year at Juilliard.

Erin Mutchler

A graduate of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, Erin is an up-and-coming jazz trumpeter. At the Frost School of Music, Erin studied with Grammy Award winning trumpeter Brian Lynch. Erin was also fortunate to work with many other incredible trumpeters during her time at the Frost School such as Jean Caze, John Daversa, Ingrid Jenson, Brad Goode, Michael Rodriguez, and Marquis Hill. Erin has shared the stage with many great artists such as David Liebman, Frank Greene, Dave Holland, Nick Smart, and Steve Miller, among many others. Some of Erin’s notable accolades include receiving the 2018 Laurie Frink Career Grant and being a semi-finalist in the National Trumpet Competition Jazz Division for three consecutive years starting in 2017. Erin’s recent musical endeavors have been focused on incorporating the Brazilian genre of Choro into jazz.


2016 Winner: Tony Glausi

Hailed as "a great writer and a terrific trumpet player" by legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach, Tony Glausi is an international award-winning trumpeter, keyboardist, composer, and producer in New York City.

Among other accolades, Tony won first prize in the 2017 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Solo Competition, first prize in the jazz division of the 2017 ITG International Trumpet Competition, first prize in the jazz division of the 2014 National Trumpet Competition, and he was the sole recipient of the 2016 Laurie Frink Career Grant, an award given every other year to a young brass player in honor of Laurie’s legacy as an incomparably inspiring pedagogue, mentor, and friend.

Growing up in a musical family in Portland, Oregon, Tony resides in New York and performs and records with the likes of Billboard-charting pianist and singer Peter Cincotti, GRAMMY-nominated pianist Randy Porter, highly celebrated vocalist Halie Loren, and a wide array of young rising jazz stars.  Most active as a trumpet player and keyboardist, Glausi is also a diversified composer whose works have been commissioned on many occasions to be performed and recorded by world-class musicians. To date, Glausi has produced seven records of his own music in physical and digital formats, garnering awards, high-praising press, and an ever growing buzz amongst fans of all ages across social media platforms. He has toured dozens of countries around the world playing at renowned festivals and clubs including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Leopolis Jazz Festival in Ukraine, the New Morning in Paris, and the Blue Note in New York, while also having performed as a featured guest artist with ensembles such as the United States Marine Corps All Star Jazz Band, the Eugene Symphony, and many high school and college bands throughout the states.

Tony is on teaching staff at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York and over the years has also held teaching positions at the University of Oregon, where he completed his degrees, and the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, where he eventually founded the Shedd Youth Jazz Orchestras.


2014 Winner: Riley Mulherkar

Credit: Lauren Desberg

Riley Mulherkar has been recognized as a “smart young trumpet player” by The New York Times, praised by The Wall Street Journal as a “youngster to keep an eye on,” and is a 2020 recipient of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award for his work as “an original bandleader, composer, arranger, educator, community activist and advocate for jazz and the arts.”

Riley works with a number of leading artists of our time, including Wynton Marsalis, Anna Deavere Smith, and Alan Cumming, and is a founding member of The Westerlies, a new music brass quartet that creates the rarest of hybrids: music that is both “folk-like and composerly, lovely and intellectually rigorous” (NPR Music). Riley also serves as Artistic Director for Jazz at Joye in Aiken, bringing leading young talent to the historic city of Aiken, South Carolina.

Born and raised in Seattle, Riley moved to New York in 2010 to study at The Juilliard School, where he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in 2014 and his Master’s in 2015. In 2014, he was the first recipient of the Laurie Frink Career Grant at the Festival of New Trumpet Music.

Riley is actively engaged in educational outreach, directing the Summer Advanced Institute at Seattle JazzEd, and serving as an ambassador for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Jazz for Young People” program in New York and St. Louis from 2016 – 2018. Riley is an Edwards Artist and performs on Edwards trumpets.