Mark Inouye is one of a very select group of trumpeters equally at home in the worlds of jazz and classical music. He is currently the principal trumpeter of the San Francisco Symphony.
He toured the United States with the nationally acclaimed organ and trumpet duo, Toccatas and Flourishes, and later became a member of the Empire Brass Quintet. He was Principal Trumpet with the Charleston Symphony before joining the San Francisco Symphony in 1999. He has served as Principal Trumpet with the Houston Symphony for two seasons, and has been a guest principal trumpet with the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic.
With the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Inouye has been a featured soloist in Copland’s Quiet City, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, J.S. Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (with soprano Carolyn Sampson), and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on two occasions (with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Yuja Wang). He has also appeared as a classical soloist on the 1st half, and led the orchestra as a jazz soloist on the 2nd half. Mr. Inouye has been a soloist with the New World Symphony on three occasions, performing the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, the Tomasi Trumpet Concerto, and the Brandt Concertpiece No. 1. He performed the Tartini Violin Concerto, arranged for trumpet, with the Houston Symphony. He also appeared as soloist in Wynton Marsalis’s video production Marsalis on Music. He was a soloist with the Tanglewood Wind Ensemble under the direction of Seiji Ozawa and has appeared as a soloist on the Disney Channel in a concert featuring the WHO at Carnegie Hall. He was a founding member of the Juilliard Jazz Sextet at Lincoln Center and a guest performer at the Hollywood Bowl in the Playboy Jazz Festival.
Mr. Inouye graduated from the Juilliard School, where he transferred after two years as a civil engineering major at the University of California, Davis.
For more on Mark Inouye, please visit his website.