James Vaughen attends the Curtis Institute of Music and is a student of David Bilger. James has soloed with the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Illinois Sinfonia da Camera. James’s performances with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra have taken him on two concert tours of China and tours of Northern Europe and Latin America, as well as performances in Carnegie Hall and Chicago Symphony Center. In 2018 James was chosen to attend the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, performing in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and throughout Sapporo. Prior to his studies at Curtis, James spent a year working as an AmeriCorps Intern for Spring Initiative, a nonprofit transformative after-school program in the Mississippi Delta. James was selected as a semifinalist in the 2019 Young Concert Artist International auditions and the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition and was the winner of the 2020 Roger Voisin Memorial Trumpet Competition. Most recently, James won the Next Generation Trumpet Competition and the Ictus International Trumpet Competition.
Ann Newton Vaughen, pianist, holds degrees in piano performance from the University of Michigan (BM) and the Juilliard School of Music (MM). She received two years of additional training in London, England, where she taught and studied under the direction of artist-teacher Maria Curcio. Ann has given concerts and master classes throughout the U.S. and Canada, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. From 1986-90 she taught on the piano faculty at Vanderbilt University, and from 1986-93 concertized with the Ramsay Duo, a classical saxophone/piano duo under the management of Columbia Artists Management, Inc. Ann has served on the piano faculty at The Community Music School in Buffalo, NY and St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA. Ann and her family currently reside in Champaign, IL, where she maintains a small private piano studio, teaching, accompanying, and performing chamber music. Ann especially enjoys collaborating with her son James in trumpet-piano performances!
Biographies courtesy of the IMF.