Past Winners

2018 Joint Winners: Giveton Gelin and Aaron Mutchler

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

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.