Alumnus Coleman Hughes ’14, all around musician, jazz trombonist, and former member of the Newark Academy Jazz Band Chameleon, has earned many accolades. He was a three-time participant in the GRAMMY Jazz Ensemble and the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, both elite high school all-star bands. He won DownBeat Magazine’s High School Outstanding Soloist award, three consecutive Outstanding Soloist awards at the 2012-2014 Charles Mingus High School Competition, and a 2013 Best Student Arrangement Award as a member of the Jazz House Kids Big Band. At the Essentially Ellington Competitions at Lincoln Center in 2013 and 2014, Coleman additionally won the Ella Fitzgerald Award for the overall Outstanding Soloist each year. Other awards include becoming the first-ever trombonist and jazz scholar-musician to win a Davidson Institute Fellowship for his portfolio, “The Rhythm of Free Expression: Honoring the Great Jazz Masters.” He was a 2014 National Young Arts Finalist where he was granted a Gold Award for Jazz Trombone, and was named a 2014 Presidential Scholar in the Arts. As Presidential Scholar, he cited Newark Academy Jazz Director Julius Tolentino as his most influential teacher. Coleman is currently a Philosophy major at Columbia University, where he blends jazz with hip hop in his ongoing musical journey. Here he performs “Isotope” and “Tin Tin Deo” during National YoungArts Week in Miami.