James Vaughen currently performs with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal trumpet and serves as assistant principal trumpet of the Chicago Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra. James has performed throughout Europe with the London Symphony Orchestra, spent four months on tour with the Canadian Brass, and most recently won first prize and audience award at the 2023 Aeolus International Competition for Wind Instruments. Last year James held a one-year principal position with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

 Passionate about advancing solo trumpet repertoire, James performs extensively in recitals and competitions. He took first in all three divisions of the 2021 International Trumpet Guild Ryan Anthony Memorial Competition and won the 2020 Roger Voisin Memorial Trumpet Competition. James placed 3rd in the 2021 Ellsworth-Smith International Trumpet Competition and was awarded Special Jury Prize at the 2022 Maurice André International Trumpet Competition.

 James performed across four continents with Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra from 2015 through 2017 and joined their All-Star reunion concert in Carnegie Hall this March. He was a member of the Pacific Music Festival Academy in 2018 and a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 2020 and 2021.

 James began playing piano at age six and trumpet at age ten, and often finds himself improvising poorly on the piano when avoiding other work.  His teachers include David Bilger, Tom Rolfs, Ronald Romm, and Sal Percoco. James enjoys visiting family in his hometown of Champaign, IL and feels extremely lucky to have a world-class pianist as his mother, coach, and collaborator. He is eager to continue to explore and create new music and arrangements for the trumpet in chamber music settings and in venues outside of the concert hall.

 Before graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2023, James took a year working as an AmeriCorps Intern for Spring Initiative, a nonprofit transformative afterschool program in the Mississippi Delta. When James is not making music you would most likely find him cooking, running, playing soccer or tennis, or finding some other activity to procrastinate posting on social media.