Kris Tiner

KRIS TINER is a trumpet artist, composer, and educator active on the West Coast for over 25 years. His playing has been described as “extraordinarily inventive” in Signal to Noise Magazine, “perfectly suited to the moment” in DownBeat, and the LA Weekly states that “trumpeter Kris Tiner can turn barbed wire to beauty.” His music has been performed on five continents, his 100+ recordings have been enthusiastically reviewed in the international jazz press, and he has performance credits on MTV, NBC, PBS and Comedy Central. Tiner has received awards from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Chamber Music America, Montalvo Arts Center, and in 2023 he was recognized as California’s jazz educator of the year by the California Music Educators Association. He is a member of the Empty Cage Quartet with recordings on Portugal’s Clean Feed label, and he collaborates with guitarist Mike Baggetta in the duo Tin/Bag. Tiner also performs with the Cathlene Pineda Quartet, Psychic Temple, the Industrial Jazz Group, and the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra. He is the Director of Jazz Studies at Bakersfield College, and has also taught at CalArts and CSU Bakersfield. Tiner is the founder of Epigraph Records, an independent label dedicated to new creative music recorded in Bakersfield. Kris Tiner is a Schilke Music artist.