Jasmine “Jazzie” Pigott started her journey by accidentally choosing the trombone. Knowing she was destined to be a tuba player due to her obsession with the theme song of the children’s show Veggie Tales, she switched as soon as she could (after a very long year) and began playing tuba at the age of 10. Frankly, that first year was defined by playing the massive instrument sideways in her lap, but her dedication to improvement allowed her to excel despite the obstacle. Now, 17 years later, with the tuba as her primary medium, Pigott is a musician with a mission to inspire the next generation of musicians of color and elevate Black music styles and composers in the field of classical music. To work towards this mission, she actively performs, educates, composes, arranges, writes, and researches.

Pigott has been a pioneer throughout her music career. In 2016, she became the first Black woman to place in the International Leonard Falcone Festival. Prior to the pandemic in 2020, Pigott won the Michigan State University Running Start Competition with her project to commission three Black composers to write pieces for the tuba in Black music styles for her EP, Revolution: The Next Generation of Tuba Music, released in July 2022. During the pandemic, Pigott founded and directed the COVID-19 Black All Star Tuba-Euphonium ensemble, a virtual ensemble of young Black tuba and euphonium players in the United States. She also cofounded the Chromatic Brass Collective, an organization for women-identifying and non-binary brass players of color and served on the board of directors until 2023. After the pandemic, in 2022, she won the Peabody Conservatory’s Yale Gordon competition which led to her performing a concerto with the Peabody Concert Orchestra under conductor Joseph Young and a recital in January 2023 as part of the Shriver Hall Concert Series in Baltimore, MD. In 2024, she became the first Black woman to earn a D.M.A. in tuba performance when she graduated from the Peabody Conservatory.

With these accomplishments, Pigott has developed a reputation for her activism, innovation, artistry, and virtuosity on the tuba. Her repertoire showcases a variety of music styles and genres, defying the norms of traditional tuba recitals to bring in new audiences and awareness to the abilities of the instrument. She has performed concertos with groups such as the Georgia Tech Symphony Orchestra, Brass Band of Central Illinois, and Huntington Community Band. She has completed residencies at institutions including the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Texas A&M Kingsville University, and Ohio University. She has toured internationally, presenting recitals and masterclasses through the Iberacademy Resonante Festival in Colombia (2022) and the Promising Artists of the 21st Century program in Costa Rica (2018).

In addition to performing, Pigott is a composer and arranger. Her works have been performed by K-12, collegiate, and professional ensembles. In her compositions, Pigott regularly incorporates Black music styles into standard contemporary classical music. She has written works for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments. Her works have been performed by ensembles including the Chromatic Brass Collective, Ithaca College Wind Ensemble, and the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute Ensemble. She has been commissioned by the Palisade Trumpet Collective, Long Island Philarmonia, and the Black Composer Revival Consortium.

Pigott is currently a faculty member at the Peabody Preparatory, teaching low brass lessons and music theory to students in the Baltimore area, and she is the Adjunct Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Hofstra University for the 2024-2025 academic year. She has served on the faculty for the annual Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA National Festival, teaching students from all around the country in an orchestra intensive, and at Ohio University as the Visiting Adjunct Professor of Tuba in the spring 2022 semester. Pigott holds degrees from Ithaca College (B.M.), Michigan State University (M.M.), and the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University (D.M.A.). Her teachers include Velvet Brown, Phil Sinder, David Earll, and Justin Benavidez.