Michael Wang | Trombone
Trombonist, composer, and arranger Michael Wang is an up and coming talent in the NYC music scene. Originally from Sacramento, California, Wang began his studies on the trombone at the age of eleven. In 2012, he moved to Boston to begin his studies at Berklee College of Music as a recipient of the Presidential Scholarship, where he studied with Phil Wilson, Marshall Gilkes, David Santoro, George Garzone, Darren Barrett, among others. He was a member of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute under the direction of Danilo Perez, from 2013-2016. During his time in school Wang participated in several jazz trombone competitions, becoming the winner of the American Trombone Workshop's "Division 1" solo competition in 2015 and was a finalist in the ITA's Carl Fontana and JJ Johnson Competitions, in 2015 and 2016. After graduating Berklee, Wang moved to New York City in 2017 where he began performing regularly with groups such as the Mingus Big Band, Frank Lacy's Smalls Sextet and "Tromboniverse," Josh Evans' Big Band, Pedro Giraudo's Jazz Orchestra, Arturo O'Farrill's Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Alexi David's "Three or Four Shades of Mingus," David Chamberlain's "Band of Bones," among others. He also occasionally leads his own quintet, performing at venues such as Smalls and Fat Cat in Greenwich Village. His debut album, called "Bone of the Wang Volume One," is set to be released in January of 2020 under Outside in Music's "Nextlevel" label. It features Jonathan Elbaz on piano, Giuseppe Cucchiara on bass, Kazuhiro Odagiri on drums, and Juan Felipe Mejia Tobon on percussion, who perform Wang's original compositions and arrangements.