Hannibal Lokumbe is an American composer, poet, community activist and noted jazz trumpeter. His career spans more than four decades. Originally from Smithville, Texas, Lokumbe lived and played in the New York jazz scene for many years where he performed with many of his music idols including Gil Evans, Roy Haynes, Cecil Taylor, Pharoah Sanders and Elvin Jones.

Hannibal is the founder and director of the Music Liberation Orchestra, a program that teaches music, poetry and genealogy to incarcerated men in the Bastrop County Jail (Bastrop, Texas), Orleans Parish Prison (New Orleans, Louisiana), the Holmesburg Prison (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and prison system of Nashville, Tennessee.

Notable awards and recognitions: Harlem Jazz Hall of Fame Lifetime Inductee; Bessie; National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); The Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lifetime Achievement, 2011; United States Artist Award in Music, Peter Cummings Fellow, 2010; Joyce Award 2011, Texas City Independent School District Hall of Fame; The Contemporary Arts Center SweetArts Award, New Orleans; Honorary Advanced Degree, Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences, 2017; Philadelphia Orchestra Composer-in-Residency, 2016-2019; 2020 recipient, Americans For The Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities.

Commissions: The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; The Philadelphia Orchestra; St. Louis Symphony; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; The American Composers Orchestra; Houston Symphony; Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; New Jersey Symphony Orchestra/New Jersey Performing Arts Center; Kronos Quartet; Vocal Essence; Carnegie Hall; Carole Haas Gravagno; The Art Sanctuary of Philadelphia; Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Nashville Symphony and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic (present).