Jacob Dalager

Jacob  is an international soloist, recording artist, award-winning composer, and Assistant Professor of Trumpet and Jazz at New Mexico State University. Before joining NMSU, he was based in the Washington D.C. area and on faculty at The Catholic University of America, Frostburg State University, and Frederick Community College, teaching trumpet, jazz performance, theory, and history, music theory and ear training, and American popular music.

Dalager's first solo recording, Paradigms: The Music of Anthony Plog, was released in November 2021 by the label Tonsehen. It premieres seven previously unreleased pieces by Plog. With a warm sound, nuanced phrasing, and technically spectacular passages, it has received critical acclaim and was featured in the May/June issue of Fanfare magazine.

Jacob premiered his second major concerto, "Organ Mountain Fantasia," with the NMSU Wind Symphony in April 2022 to an enthusiastic reception. He performed his award-winning first original concerto, 3ɟutures for trumpet and orchestra, with the Austin Symphony Orchestra in 2019 after playing three concerti with the orchestra in 2016. Before that, he soloed with the Jesselton Philharmonic, Te Deum Chamber Orchestra, and the St. Olaf Band and Orchestra.

Before moving to New Mexico, he was principal trumpet of the Washington Chamber Orchestra and has been a guest performer with the National Philharmonic, Post-Classical Ensemble, Rochester Philharmonic, Symphoria, Singapore Symphony, National Taiwan Symphony, and Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestras, among many others.

As a chamber musician, Dalager has reformed the NMSU Brass Quintet, which tours frequently in the Southwest, and led the acclaimed Parkway Brass and M-Street Brass Quintets in Maryland. A versatile crossover musician, Jacob was the lead trumpet of the Wammy-award-winning bands Black Masala (world fusion) and Shamans of Sound (reggae). He is an active jazz freelancer and has performed at the Singapore International Jazz Festival and World Youth Jazz Festival; with James Morrison and Kitaro; and recorded with the Thomson Big Band. In 2022, Jacob will make his debut with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and headline a jazz festival in Campina Grande, Brazil.

Dr. Dalager’s compositions and arrangements have been commissioned and performed by groups across the country, including the Austin Symphony, Parkway Brass, St. Olaf Band, and Lyrica Chamber Orchestra. He was a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award in 2011, Second Prize winner in the 2020 Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers, and in the 2022 Music International Grand Prix.

Dalager holds a D.M.A. in music performance from Catholic University (2020), an M.M. and Arts Leadership Certificate from the Eastman School of Music (2012), and a B.A. and B.M. in Theory/Composition and Trumpet Performance from St. Olaf College (2009).