Hannibal Lokumbe

Award Winning Jazz Trumpeter and Composer

Hannibal Lokumbe resides in Bastrop, Texas with his family. His career in music spans over four decades. This journey has seen him go from the cotton fields of Elgin, Texas where he heard the hymns of his grandparents, to the stages of Carnegie Hall and much of the world.

At age thirteen he was given a trumpet by his mother. A year later his band The Soul Masters was backing up such icons as Jackie Wilson, Otis Redding, Etta James, Lightning Hopkins and T. Bone Walker.

He is the recipient of numerous awards, among them being The Bessie’s, The NEA, And A Lifetime Achievement award from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He has composed works for The Kronos String Quartet, The Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit and Houston Symphonies. His ground breaking opera African Portraits was performed and recorded by The Chicago Symphony under the direction of Daniel Barenboim and has been performed nearly two hundred time since its November 11, 1990 Carnegie Hall debut. His works range from string quartets to full orchestral and choral compositions.

His oratorio Dear Mrs. Parks was commissioned performed and recorded by The Detroit Symphony Orchestra in March 2009 for a November 09 release on Naxos records.

He spent twenty five years in New York City playing trumpet and recording with some of his jazz heroes including Gil Evans, Pharaoh Sanders, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, Mc Coy Tyner among many others.

In 1974 he formed the Sunrise Orchestra and for over fifteen years toured the world playing in every major music festival from Istanbul to China.

He has written two books of poems, wrote and starred in an autobiographical play entitled Diary Of An African American, which toured Europe and Colombia, South America. He has lectured at Harvard University and extensively at The University Of Pennsylvania where he is often invited.

His latest composition A Shepherd Among Us by The Art Sanctuary was recorded and is currently being aired on channel WHYY television’s On Canvas series.

His current activities includes implementing a Genealogical model he created entitled From One Comes Many, at The Mc Dade Public School, West Philadelphia High School and Saint Francis De Sales.
He is currently composing a work for choir, jazz quartet and vocal soloist entitled The Parables of Mary As Given To Hannibal.

Daily activities include composing, gardening, mentoring children in history, music composition and teaching choral music to a community choir.