Dr. Jacob Dalager is an international crossover soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, award-winning composer, and Assistant Professor of Trumpet and Director of Jazz at New Mexico State University. He plays principal trumpet with the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra and 2nd Trumpet with the El Paso Symphony Orchestra. He is an innovative pedagogue, taking a modern and individualized approach to solving the trumpet’s technical challenges and laying the groundwork for each student’s multi-faceted music career.
In 2025, Dalager released Desert Dialogues, a collaborative album with trumpeter Jason Carder and pianist Ina Selvelieva. The album explores a wide-ranging repertoire from Satie to Turrin, highlighting Dalager’s versatility as a collaborator. Later that year, his concerto 3ɟutures—previously awarded second prize in the 2022 Music International Grand Prix and Honorable Mention in the 2023 American Prize—was recorded with the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra under conductor Ming Luke.
Dalager’s first solo recording, Paradigms: The Music of Anthony Plog (Tonsehen, 2021), featured seven previously unrecorded pieces by Plog. With a warm sound, nuanced phrasing, and technically spectacular passages, it received critical acclaim in Fanfare, ITG Journal, Meet the Artist, and American Record Guide.
Jacob premiered his second concerto, Organ Mountain Fantasia (a featured selection at the 2024 International Trumpet Guild and College Music Society conferences), with the NMSU Wind Symphony in 2022 to enthusiastic reception. He performed his first concerto, 3ɟutures, with the Austin Symphony Orchestra in 2019 after playing three concerti with the orchestra in 2016. He has also soloed with the Jesselton Philharmonic, Te Deum Chamber Orchestra, and the St. Olaf Band and Orchestra.
Before moving to New Mexico, Dalager was principal trumpet of the Washington Chamber Orchestra for six seasons and performed with the National Philharmonic, Post-Classical Ensemble, Rochester Philharmonic, Symphoria, Singapore Symphony, National Taiwan Symphony, and Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestras, among others. He can be heard on the Singapore Symphony’s recordings of Rachmaninoff and Debussy.
As a chamber musician, Dalager re-formed the NMSU Brass Quintet and led the acclaimed Parkway Brass and M-Street Brass Quintets in Maryland. His groundbreaking quintet piece, Suite Analogique, has been performed across the country and won third prize in the 2023 American Prize, second in the 2020 Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers, and the 2022 Foundation for Modern Music Audience Choice Award.
A versatile crossover musician, Jacob plays solo trumpet with the Border Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Exchange Big Band and leads the NMSU Faculty Jazz Sextet; he was lead trumpet of the Wammy Award-winning bands Black Masala and Shamans of Sound. He headlined the 2022 FIMUS Jazz Festival in Brazil and performed at the Singapore International and World Youth Jazz Festivals.
Dalager holds a DMA from Catholic University (2020), MM from the Eastman School of Music (2012), and a BA and BM from St. Olaf College (2009).