James Mooy holds music and education degrees from UCLA (B.A. and M.A.). His trumpet performance studies have been with Jimmy Valves, Ron Thompson, Tony Plog, and Mario Guarneri. A Music Academy of the West alumnus, he has toured the U.S. and Japan as a professional trumpet player. James taught the band and orchestra program at R.A. Millikan High School in Long Beach for five years. During that time he freelanced regularly in the Los Angeles area and held a position as a Disneyland musician. Mr. Mooy currently conducts the award winning Lunch Break Jazz Ensemble, and the Symphony Orchestra at Santa Barbara City College. Additional teaching duties have included Music Appreciation and Music Technology. Mr. Mooy continues to serve as an adjudicator for numerous solo, chamber, wind ensemble, string ensemble, and jazz ensemble festivals. He has repeatedly served as conductor for honor bands, honor jazz ensembles, and honor orchestras throughout California. Under his leadership, the SBCC Lunch Break Jazz Ensemble was one of 6 finalist bands chosen for the Monterey Next Gen Jazz Festival for three consecutive years. As director of SBCC’s Summer Jazz Seminars, Mr. Mooy leads a team of jazz educators in running beginning and advanced big bands, combos, jazz theory classes, and advanced topics classes. Each summer over 50 junior high, high school, and college students attend the seminar. More information on this low-cost program can be found at http://music.sbcc.edu/summerjazz/
Recently he was selected to be the director of the 2017 SCSBOA Honor Jazz Ensemble, a group the most talented Southern California musicians which performed at the NAMM Show.