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Hannibal Lokumbe was born Marvin Peterson in Smithville, Texas on November 11, 1948. As a child he was inspired by the spirituals and hymns of his grandparents but by 13 was given a trumpet and a year later his band The Soul Masters was backing icons such as Jackie Wilson, Otis Redding, Etta James, Lightning Hopkins and T-Bone Walker.

He attended North Texas State University from 1967 to 1969, and then moved to New York in 1970. Lokumbe spent the next twenty-five years in New York City playing trumpet and recording with some of his jazz heroes including Gil Evans, Pharaoh Sanders, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, and McCoy Tyner among many others. In 1974 he formed the Sunrise Orchestra and for more than fifteen years toured the world playing in every major music festival from Istanbul to China.

The recipient of numerous awards including the Bessie’s, the NEA, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Hannibal has composed works for The Kronos String Quartet, the Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit and Houston Symphonies. His groundbreaking opera African Portraits was performed and recorded by The Chicago Symphony under the direction of Daniel Barenboim and has been performed nearly two hundred times since its November 11, 1990 Carnegie Hall debut.

His works range from string quartets to full orchestral and choral compositions; he has written two books of poems, wrote and starred in an autobiographical play entitled Diary of an African American, and has lectured extensively at The University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard University. He currently has a catalogue of 14 recordings as a leader and twenty-two as a sideman having worked with Richard Davis, Grachan Moncur, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders and numerous others. Trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe steadfastly composes works for choir, jazz and vocal soloist; mentors and teaches children in history, music composition, teaching choral music to his community choir and he also gardens.

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