Doing What She Loves

By Patrick Bohn, July 15, 2025

Jasmine Pigott ’19 breaks new ground on representation for and in tuba music.

Jasmine Pigott '19 aims to inspire future generations of musicians.

Over the last decade of her career, Jasmine Pigott ’19 has been breaking ground as both a tuba performer and an academic. In 2016, she became the first Black woman to place at the Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival, a prestigious annual gathering of low-brass musicians from around the globe. She is also the first Black woman to earn a doctor of musical arts in tuba performance from the prestigious Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University.

With that list of accomplishments, it’s not surprising that she was awarded an Outstanding Young Alumni during Alumni Weekend 2025.

Pigott’s trailblazing career was not the one she originally envisioned when she came to IC. “I was naturally shy, so when I was in high school, I’d sneak off into rehearsal rooms to practice at lunch,” she said. “I wanted to help support other students like that as a band director, so I originally enrolled at Ithaca as a music education major.”

Originally a music education major, Pigott focused on performance following her sophomore year recital and a junior year trip to Costa Rica to perform in Limon.

However, when Pigott stepped onto the stage in the Nabenhauer Recital Room for her sophomore elective recital, something changed. “I performed a piece called ‘Ten Blind Dates for Solo Tuba’ where I would go on ‘dates’ with friends onstage, and the music would narrate my thoughts,” she recalled. “People were laughing so loud, and I really got to feel what it was like to impact an audience. So I went to seek that out more.”

The next year, Pigott traveled to Costa Rica with Fred Peterbark, IC’s former director of music admissions and preparatory programs, to perform for local communities. “We were in Limon, which is a predominantly Black area,” she recalled. “And performing spirituals for people of color and seeing them singing along was a pivotal moment for me. I remember just feeding off the energy of that moment.”

These experiences led Pigott to Michigan State University to earn a master’s degree in tuba performance and inspired her to record an extended play (EP), called “Revolution: The Next Generation of Tuba Music” on which she commissioned three Black composers, including Malachi Brown ’19 and Keeghan Fountain ’20, to write pieces featuring the tuba in Black music styles. The project, which won first prize in Michigan State’s Running Start competition, was completed with the help of a Kickstarter campaign after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down her plans for a tour.

Pigott said that the audience reaction to her performance of "10 Blind Dates for Solo Tuba" was a pivotal moment for her.

The EP was pretty significant for what it accomplished,” she said. “I’ve met people of color at conferences who have told me they loved it, and that means a lot to me.”

Already a groundbreaker and trailblazer at 27 years old, Pigott is currently a faculty member at Peabody Preparatory. And while she wants to be a professor and continue to tour and perform, she admits she’s still trying to “figure out” her next steps.

“I’ve always aimed to be a person who other people can look at and be inspired,” she said. “When people come up to me and tell me what my work meant to them, it keeps me doing what I love.”