Mike Parkinson is a KHS America Education Artist and XO Trumpet Artist, a Kansas Touring Artist performer, and Director of the Trinity Jazz Ensemble, an ecumenical group in Kansas City. Mike has served as a guest artist at schools, conferences and festivals across the US, Poland, and China. He is the author of BASIE, BEBOP, BALLADS & BLUES, a jazz ensemble repertoire guide, and BEYOND THE BLUES, a guide to score-part editing and rehearsal techniques. He served as Director of the Middle Tennessee State University School of Music and Director of Jazz Studies at the UMKC Conservatory of Music. Mike has performed with artists including Bob Brookmeyer, Bill Dobbins, Gary Foster, Joachim Mencel, Janusz Muniak, and Dominik Wania, and recorded with Michelle Himmell, the Spirit of Kansas City Orchestra, St. Thomas Quartet, and Kirby Shaw. As Director of the International Summer Jazz Academy in Poland, Mike has brought American and European artists together to teach students from across Europe and the US and was named Amicus Poloniae by the Republic of Poland. Mike holds degrees from Cincinnati, Kent State, and North Texas. Primary teachers include Frank Brown, Bill Scarlett, Scott Huston, Marie Speziale, Harry Herforth, Kelly Hale, and Leopold Sipe. Mike is a member of the Jazz Education Network, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the International Relations Council, Saint Louis Polonia, the United Methodist Church, and is a Sigma Alpha Iota Friend of the Arts.