Jazz festivals worldwide have seen Alex Sipiagin performing with the likes of Dave Holland, Michael Brecker, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, the Mingus groups, and many more. In 1990, Alex participated in the International Louis Armstrong Competition sponsored by the Thelonius Monk Institute in Washington DC, winning top honours. After 30 over years of living in New York City, he has since relocated to Italy.
In his early career, Alex became a favoured player for various bands including the Gil Evans Orchestra, Gil Goldstein's Zebra Coast Orchestra, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, drummer Bob Moses' band Mozamba, the Mingus Big Band as well as the Mingus Dynasty and Mingus Orchestra, and the Dave Holland Big Band, Sextet and Octet groups.
In 2003, he recorded with Michael Brecker’s Quindectet, touring also with the Michael Brecker Sextet. Alex has also worked with Eric Clapton, DrJohn, Aaron Neville, Elvis Costello, Michael Franks, Dave Sanborn, Deborah Cox, legendary producer Phil Ramone, Gonzalo Rubalcaba among other artistes. Many of the recordings he has been involved in have been nominated for and/or won at the Grammy Awards. He is part of the Grammy award-winning albums by the Dave Holland Big Band, “What Goes Around” and “Overtime,” Michael Brecker Quindectet’s “Wide Angles,” and the Dafnis Prieto Big Band’s “Into the Sunset”.
As a soloist, Sipiagin has more than twenty recordings to his credit, including having jazz greats such as Mulgrew Miller and Chris Potter featured in them. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, New Zealand with his own groups. He held a professorship at New York University (NYU) for seven years, and a residency at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Furthermore, he currently holds residencies at Academy of Music in Basel, Switzerland and Siena Jazz in Italy.
Alex Sipiagin has recorded at least 20 solo albums for the prestigious jazz label Criss- Cross Jazz, featuring several notable musicians such as Chris Potter, Eric Harland, David Binney, Adam Rogers, John Escreet and Matt Brewer. In recent years, Alex has also recorded two solo albums titled “Upstream” and “Ascent to the Blues” with the Positone Label. Alex Sipiagin recently released his newest album with Criss Cross label titled “Mel’s Vision” in early 2023. He is currently working on his next recording for Blue Room Music label which will feature his favourite musicians Chris Potter, Eric Harland, John Escreet, Matt Brewer, all of whom also recorded on his previous notable albums by Criss Cross label “Moments Captured”, “Balance 38-58”, “Destination Unknown”, Blue Room Music label “NoFo Skies” and others.
This recent year saw Alex collaborating as soloist with several large ensembles in Europe including the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for Fekete-Kovács Kornél, Alex’s original compositions with RTV Radio Slovenia Big Band titled “New York Sketches”, and Big Band Radio Romania titled “Wind Dance”. In August 2022, Alex Sipiagin also received a commission to arrange his music for and perform with a contemporary string quartet at summer festivals in Austria and Germany.
Alex continues to travel with his various small groups as a trio, quartet, quintet etc. as well as a side man with renowned jazz artists.
Trumpet (Guest Teacher)