Charlie Porter

Charlie Porter
Portland, OR
Grant amount: $14,928

About the Artist

Internationally acclaimed and Grammy Award-winning trumpeter and composer Charlie Porter first cut his teeth on the New York jazz scene in the late ’90s, while simultaneously studying classical trumpet performance at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of famed trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis. Though he has recorded many albums as a side musician, Porter has recorded three albums to date, as a leader, that have been garnering high praise. He recently released his third album ""Hindsight"" on the Origin label. Before that, his 2019 release “Immigration Nation” was voted one of the best albums of the year by DownBeat. His debut album “Charlie Porter,” released in 2018, featured a who’s who of Portland jazz musicians, including the legendary Mel Brown and Chuck Israels. It was hailed as ""A testament to Porter's prodigious talent and imaginative creativity” by All About Jazz and as ""Technical wizardry” by DownBeat Magazine.

Charlie has toured the world as a side-man and band-leader in jazz and also as a classical soloist and chamber musician, performing and recording with many notable musicians and groups over the last twenty years ranging from jazz greats including Joe Zawinul, Winard Harper, Mike Longo, Paquito D’Rivera, Ira Sullivan, Aaron Diehl, Mike Holober, Jimmy Greene, Jay Thomas, David Berger, Charli Persip and Chuck Israels to classical artists such as Simone Dinnerstein, Sarah Chang, and Joyce DiDonato as well as world-music greats Goran Bregovic, Marcel Khalife, and Kim Duksoo, among many others. He is also a founding member of the grammy-nominated electro-acoustic Absolute Ensemble, directed by Kristjan Jarvi. Charlie’s collaboration on opera star Joyce DoDonato’s crossover album “Songplay” earned him a Grammy Award for 2019. As a composer, he has been commissioned by Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Foundation.

Charlie's Quintet and Quartet have toured West Africa, Southeast Asia, China, and the Middle East. This exact formation of his group has not yest toured, though Nick Biello and Alan Jones have both toured together on the west coast album release tour for Immigration Nation. Nick Biello also toured with Charlie's Quintet, recently in Qatar in November of 2021. George Colligan has been a collaborator over the past eight years. This tour will be the first for this exact configuration of performers.