Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter and composer. He is among the most prominent jazz musicians of the modern era and is also a well-known instrumentalist in classical music. He is also the Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. A compilation of his series of inspirational letters to a young jazz musical student, named Anthony, has been published as To a Young Jazz Musician.
Marsalis has made his reputation with a combination of skill in jazz performance and composition, a sophisticated yet earthy and hip personal style, an impressive knowledge of jazz and jazz history, and skill as a virtuoso classical trumpeter. As of 2006, he has made sixteen classical and more than thirty jazz recordings, has been awarded nine Grammys between the genres, and has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first time it has been awarded for a jazz recording.
Wynton Marsalis was born to Dolores Ferdinand and Ellis Marsalis, Jr., a New Orleans-based music teacher and pianist. He is the second of six sons.
In 1997 he became the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize in music, for his epic oratorio, Blood on the Fields, on the subject of slavery.
Marsalis has been awarded the 2005 National Medal of Arts of the United States, the Grand Prix du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy and the Edison Award of the Netherlands, and was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in Britain. He has received several honorary doctoral degrees, and a variety of other recognitions from Brandeis University, Brown University, Columbia University, Denison University, Harvard University, Haverford College, Johns Hopkins University, the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Northwestern University, Princeton University, the University of Miami, Southern Methodist University(SMU) and Yale University.