Described as "one of the most compelling voices to emerge on her instrument in recent years" (Dan Bilawksy, All about Jazz), Australian-born based trumpeter/composer Nadje Noordhuis possesses one of the most unforgettably lyrical voices in modern music. Her deeply-felt, clarion tone and evocative compositional gift meld classical rigor, jazz expression, and world music accents into a sound that is distinctively her own.
Noordhuis was one of ten semi-finalists in the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition and was selected as a Carnegie Hall Young Artist in 2010. Based in New York since 2003, she is a member of the multiple Grammy-winning Maria Schneider Orchestra, Grammy-nominated Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, and the Grammy-nominated Anat Cohen Tentet.
She has three albums of original compositions on her record label, Little Mystery Records. with the fourth album releasing in September. Her eponymous debut jazz quintet album featuring Grammy nominees Sara Caswell and Geoffrey Keezer was released to critical acclaim in 2012. Her 2015 contemplative duo album of miniatures with pianist Luke Howard, Ten Sails, has garnered much international attention, with multi-million streams on Spotify and YouTube. Her 2017 album with vibraphonist/synthesist James Shipp, Indigo, was premiered at the Wangaratta Jazz Festival in Australia.
Her new genre-bending quintet with Maeve Gilchrist (celtic harp), Jesse Lewis (electric guitar), Ike Sturm (electric bass), and James Shipp (synthesizers, percussion) coolly blends acoustic and electric instruments, seamlessly weaving her melodious compositions with threads of improvisation. Featuring her pure toned trumpet with electronic effects, this group released an album recorded live in Switzerland, as part of a vinyl-only box set on Newvelle Records in 2019. This album, Gullfoss, will be digitally released on Little Mystery Records in September 2021.
Noordhuis’ group is currently working on their next album, slated for release in 2021, with support from a Chamber Music America Performance Plus grant.