Ryan Nielsen

Biography

Praised for his “breathtaking” sound as a “musician of the highest order,” Dr. Ryan Nielsen is a jazz trumpet artist known for a voice that combines groove, soulfulness, and beautiful melody. He has toured and/or recorded to international acclaim with the Kobie Watkins Grouptet (Origin Records), Ra Kalam Bob Moses, NEA Jazz Master Delfeayo Marsalis, and the Summit Brass. His recordings have earned a 4.5-star rating from All About Jazz, “Recommended New Release” honors from the New York City Jazz Record, and a place among the ten best albums of the year as selected by Howard Reich, former Pulitzer Prize juror and music critic for the Chicago Tribune. In 2024 he released Triple B Blues, an all-video solo album featuring Bobby Broom, Ryan Hanseler, Christian Dillingham, Will Ledbetter, and Kobie Watkins.

Alongside his performing career, Nielsen has devoted himself with equal seriousness to a question that often goes unexamined: how jazz is actually learned. That inquiry produced The Classroom Guide to Jazz Improvisation, co-authored with his friend and mentor, jazz icon John McNeil (Professor Emeritus, New England Conservatory of Music), published by Oxford University Press in 2024 and quickly a #1 New Release on Amazon in Jazz and Blues. It has also shaped a teaching practice that reaches around the world: consulting for professional musicians and students alike from Los Angeles to London to Turkey, a YouTube channel — Ryan’s Trumpet — with thousands of subscribers globally, and guest artist residencies at the University of Michigan, Indiana University, and Arizona State University. He served as jazz editor of the International Trumpet Guild Journal and as a juror for the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition. His students are working throughout the United States and beyond in careers in performance and education.

Nielsen’s teaching is further distinguished by his work in depth psychology and somatic practice. Drawing on decades of experience working with performers on the mindset demands of the stage and the practice room, he is completing a certificate in BodyDreaming, Marian Dunlea’s somatic, Jungian, and attachment-based approach — and integrates these practices in working with performance anxiety from a somatic and creative place, helping musicians meet pressure not as a problem to manage but as material for deeper artistry. As a Jungian scholar, he has been a keynote speaker at international gatherings on art and depth psychology in Aix-en-Provence, France and in Ireland, and has presented to the International Association of Jungian Studies. He has also published with the Jungian Psychology Space and its French counterpart, Espace Francophone Jungien.

A LOTUS trumpet artist, Nielsen performs on the LOTUS Silver Flare trumpet with a 1XL2 Nickel LOTUS mouthpiece. He serves as Associate Professor of Trumpet at Utah Valley University and lives in Utah with his wife Holly, a visual artist working in the Jungian and mythic tradition, their three children, Holly’s garden, and Ryan’s books.

SPECIALTIES:
Jazz improvisation
Creativity
Performance psychology
Trauma-informed pedagogy
Jazz composition
Writer’s block
Trumpet embouchure
Music theory
Classical – Jaz crossover

LANGUAGES:
Portuguese, English