Naomi Siegel

aomi Moon Siegel is a composer, trombonist, producer and music educator whose work is geared toward creating authentic expression and connection. In June 2016 she released her debut album Shoebox View – a ten-song travelogue featuring 13 musicians and cinematically combining folk melodies with fantastical soundscapes and patient arrangements. She is one half of the folk/punk/jazz duo Syrinx Effect, a member of Wayne Horvitz’s Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble and an active collaborator in the Seattle music scene, performing regionally and internationally. In 2012 she received the Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award for Emerging Artist of the Year. She has performed with such luminaries as Skerik, Stuart Dempster, Das Racist, Allison Miller, Rene Hart, Terry Riley, Julian Prieste, Wycliffe Gordon, and Tata Dindin and The Salam Band. As an educator, she teaches privately and in workshop and ensemble settings working with students to develop their own sound, improvisation skills and compositional voice.

Since moving to Seattle in 2008, Siegel has been a mainstay of the world, experimental and jazz scenes. She has collaborated and played with many ensembles including The Jefferson Rose Band, Thione Diop’s Afro Groove, Picoso, Ahamefule J. Oluo’s Now I’m Fine, Daniel Barry’s Two Hemispheres and many of Wayne Horvitz’s projects. She has made appearances in the Earshot Jazz Festival, Sasquatch! and Bumbershoot. Living in Seattle’s rich musical climate has given her space and inspiration to develop her own musical voice rather than trying to fit into a certain genre.
She is an in-demand educator, teaching for Seattle JazzEd, The Jazz Night School, Seattle Music Partners and Seattle Rock Orchestra Summer Intensive, while maintaining her own private teaching studio where she infuses trombone teaching with her study of yoga and meditation.

In 2012 she committed to a practice involving composing new material every day for a designated period of time. To flee the Seattle grey, she created her own musical retreats in Costa Rica, Senegal and The Gambia to slow down, absorb environmental sounds and just compose. This practice has resulted in a rich library of pieces that she then arranges for different ensembles, including her own groups Sunchasers and The ODAT Band – both featured in The Earshot Jazz Festival. Her debut album Shoebox View also features pieces composed in this way. In 2016 she will be touring in support of Shoebox View with an intimate ensemble featuring guitarist Sean Woolstenhulme and drummer Eric Eagle.

While an Oakland, CA resident from 2006-2008, she performed at the Stanford Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, Monterrey Blues Festival and made appearances with the Naomi Siegel Quartet, Edgardo Y Su Candela, Realistic Orchestra, Joyfull Noise Brass Band, Ms. Taylor P. Collins and the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. As an educator, she was a faculty member at The Jazz School (now the California Jazz Conservatory) and The Stanford Jazz Workshop.

In addition to her work as a musician, Siegel also produces Love Bath Sound Collages. Love Bath Sound Collages are long-lasting gifts that mash up voicemails spoken for the recipient. Usually given in honor of special occasions like weddings and graduations, Love Baths are evocative, celebratory archives featuring a community of voices that leaves the listener/recipient feeling showered with love.

She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz trombone performance from Oberlin Conservatory where she studied with Robin Eubanks, Jim DeSano and Wendell Logan. During that time she also participated in a mind-expanding workshop at the School for Improvised Music, studying with some of New York’s finest improvisers such as Ralph Alessi, Mark Helias and Ravi Coltrane. Attending Milton Academy gave her the opportunity to have transformative music-making experiences in South Africa at the age of 16.

She was born in western Massachusetts, spent many formative years playing in the woods of western North Carolina with a community of friends, and was raised outside Chicago. Inspired by the natural world, her music creates an auditory landscape, providing a space for performers and listeners to be with their own feelings while connecting with the larger ecosystem.