Naomi Moon Siegel Ensemble

About the Artist

Naomi Moon Siegel Ensemble
Missoula, MT
Grant amount: $15,000

Award-winning trombonist and composer Naomi Moon Siegel has “crafted a truly unique aesthetic, combining elements of straightahead, fusion and modern jazz with world-music flavors in a way that sounds entirely of the 21st century” (JAZZIZ). She is committed to exploring the trombone as a vehicle for sonic expression colored by breath, spit, and physicality.

As a composer and bandleader, Siegel has released two albums to critical acclaim, Shoebox View on Break Open Records in 2016, and Live at Earshot on Slow and Steady Records in 2019. Her third album, produced by Siegel and Allison Miller, is slated to come out in 2024, drawing inspiration from themes such as climate change, grief, and joy.

After the release of Siegel’s debut album, she formed the Naomi Moon Siegel Ensemble in 2016 to present the album’s compositions in live performance. Playing Siegel’s original music, the band employs deep grooves, soaring melodies, fantastical soundscapes, creative interplay, and free improvisation. Siegel cultivates fertile ground for the band members to bring in their dynamic voices. The ensemble has performed around the United States at the Earshot Jazz Festival, Roulette, Upstream Music Festival, Sunburst Performing Arts Series, Cornish at Amazon Summer Concert Series, Missoula Art Museum, The Royal Room, Nocturne, An Die Musik, Freddy’s Bar, The Jazz Station, Center for New Music, Art Boutiki, Sidebar NOLA, and KNKX Radio Station.

Siegel has been an active performer and recording artist in the Northwest United States music scene since moving to the west coast in 2006. She is a longtime collaborator with Wayne Horvitz, and has also performed with such luminaries as Jessica Lurie, Carmen Staaf, March Fourth Marching Band, Allison Miller, Julian Priester, Stuart Dempster, Skerik, and Thione Diop. With saxophonist Kate Olson, Siegel formed the folk punk jazz duo Syrinx Effect, which has released 4 albums and performed around the United States.

A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, Siegel has received the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Hero Award, Montana Art Council’s Artist Innovation Award, Chamber Music America’s Performance Plus Grant, and an Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award for Emerging Artist of the Year. She is a member of Mutual Mentorship for Musicians 4th cohort— a program started by Sara Serpa and Jen Shyu to empower historically underrepresented gender identities in music. Deeply influenced by the natural world and various global music traditions, Siegel has created her own musical retreats in The Gambia, Senegal, and Costa Rica, to slow down, absorb environmental sounds, learn local music traditions, and build her original composition library.

Siegel, currently an adjunct professor of trombone at the University of Montana, is a dedicated music educator. She teaches guest artist clinics and private lessons, and is a faculty member of the Stanford Jazz Workshop Jazz Summer Camp. Siegel is a committedadvocate for intersectional gender justice in jazz and music settings, leading workshops around the United States to build awareness and work towards positive systemic shifts in our music culture. She has lead workshops at University of Colorado, Goucher College, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle JazzEd, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and more.

In 2016 she moved to Missoula to be more integrated with nature and family. The following year she launched Lakebottom Sound, an organization that enlivens Missoula’s creative music scene through concerts (Lakebottom Sound Series), workshops, and jam sessions (The FreeSessions). 

Living in Seattle from 2008-2016, Siegel quickly became a mainstay of the city’s world, experimental, and jazz scenes. She has collaborated with many ensembles including The Jefferson Rose Band, Thione Diop’s Afro Groove, Picoso, Ahamefule J. Oluo’s Now I’m Fine, Daniel Barry’s Two Hemispheres and many of Wayne Horvitz’s projects. She has made appearances in the Earshot Jazz Festival, Sasquatch! and Bumbershoot. Living in Seattle’s rich musical climate has been an integral part of her development of her own musical voice. She will always consider Seattle to be a musical home.

While an Oakland, CA resident from 2006-2008, she performed at the Stanford Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, Monterrey Blues Festival and made appearances with Edgardo Y Su Candela, Realistic Orchestra, Joyfull Noise Brass Band, Ms. Taylor P. Collins and the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. As an educator, she was a faculty member at The Jazz School (now the California Jazz Conservatory) and The Stanford Jazz Workshop.

She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz trombone performance from Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with Robin Eubanks, Jim DeSano and Wendell Logan. During that time she also participated in a mind-expanding workshop at the School for Improvised Music, studying with some of New York’s finest improvisers such as Ralph Alessi, Mark Helias and Ravi Coltrane. Attending Milton Academy gave her the opportunity to have transformative music-making experiences in South Africa at the age of 16.

She was born in western Massachusetts, spent many formative years playing in the woods of western North Carolina with a community of friends, and was raised outside Chicago. Inspired by the natural world, her music creates an auditory landscape, providing a space for performers and listeners to be with their own feelings while connecting with the surrounding ecosystem.