Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City
Switzerland’s Basel Symphony Orchestra
Northwestern University – student of Arnold Jacobs
The United States Army Band of Washington, D.C. as a teenager
new recording – Portrait – 14 tracks, 71 minutes, standard jazz repertoire and jazz-fusion originals, pianist Kyle Aho and drummer Marty Morrison-both of Missouri State University Jazz Studies Faculty, renowned bassist Bob Bowman
Ralph Hepola led a quartet performance at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival on June 20, 2026. “The Twin Cities Jazz Festival is a non-profit organization with the mission of bringing communities together to enjoy and appreciate the art form of jazz and inspire new generations of youth. What started as a small, one-day event in downtown Minneapolis 27 years ago has grown into one of the largest free civic jazz festivals in the Upper Midwest.”
The performance took place in the Main Stage Showroom at Crooners in Minneapolis – The Center of The Twin Cities Music Scene. “Recognized as one of the best jazz venues in the world by Downbeat Magazine once again in 2023, Crooners offers world-class entertainment in a variety of genres.”
awards & screenings at 11 film festivals in U.S. & Europe
New York Lift-Off Film Festival; London Movie Awards; Florence Film Awards, Italy; Kansas City Underground Film Festival; Indie Gathering International Film Festival, Cleveland; Stockholm City Film Festival, Sweden; Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival, United Kingdom; New York Movie Awards; Milan Gold Awards, Italy; Paris Lift-Off Film Festival; Paris Film Awards
Tuba player Ralph Hepola was a 2024 Made in New York Jazz Competition Runner-Up; the first low brass player to ever advance that far in this esteemed competition founded in 2013; the judges were Mike Stern, Randy Brecker, Lenny White.
John Stites Jazz Awards of Michigan awarded a major grant to Ralph Hepola to fund a May 2024 quartet tour of Illinois and Michigan. As a musician who plays the language of contemporary jazz on the tuba, Hepola is totally focused on ‘a new and innovative approach’ which was required by the JSJA application guidelines. The applications were scored by an independent Review Committee composed of professional jazz musicians with national and international experience. The winning projects focused on expanding the audience for jazz, while celebrating the diverse national and international influences on the music and identifying opportunities to capitalize on the intergenerational and cross-cultural appeal of jazz.
Only three applicants won awards. The other two were New York City pianist/singer Judy Carmichael whom Count Basie nicknamed “Stride”, and CityMusic Cleveland to produce a jazz documentary. JSJA awarded over $280,000 in the previous 4 years.
additional awards
Missouri Arts Council April 2021 Featured Artist
Southwest Minnesota Arts Council 2017 Individual Artist Career Grant
Minnesota State Arts Board 2010 and 2012 Artist Initiative Grants
Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, New Mexico 2004 residency
Ralph has played performances of seventy-three different operas in ninety-eight opera productions with fifteen different musical organizations in the United States and Europe including the production and video of Silent Night for which composer Kevin Puts was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
Ralph Hepola is heard on fifty-one recordings, numerous reissues, and fifty-five video productions.
five recordings by Ralph Hepola’s groups
Portrait; Tuba; Route 3/HepTones; Heptones; Route 3-An American Musical Journey
The tuba is one of the most powerful and prominent instruments in the orchestra.
classical music recordings
The world premiere recording of Kurt Weill’s Die Buergschaft with Spoleto Festival USA on the major label EMI
40 MOST BEAUTIFUL LOVE THEMES on the major label Warner Classics
BRITISH COMPOSERS – A CELEBRATION on the major label EMI Classics/Warner Classics
BRITISH COMPOSERS – ETHEL SMYTH on the major label EMI
The Minnesota Orchestra Stravinsky Rite of Spring which was a 1997 Grammy Award Nominee for Best Engineered Classical Recording, and when re-issued on vinyl garnered the 2016 Rocky Mountain International Hi Fi Press Award for Best Audiophile Recording – Analogue.
The recording, video and performances of A Year with Frog and Toad by The Children’s Theatre in Minneapolis – “the country’s largest theatre for children and their families” which received three 2003 Tony Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. The Children’s Theatre won the 2003 Regional Theatre Tony Award.
Dominick Argento’s Te Deum – one of five nominees for 1992 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition
Libby Larsen’s Coming Forth Into Day Choral Symphony – 1987 Pulitzer Prize Finalist
New York composer Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath
“A musician who plays the language of contemporary jazz on the tuba.”
– Brian Zimmerman, JAZZIZ
JAZZIZ has been called “the voice of a new jazz culture, a culture it helped create,” and over the past 35 years has earned the reputation for its undisputed authority on jazz and style.
“Tu like a tuba, fufu like a funker and gro like a groover. This tune has Herbie fusion magic all over it.” 4 stars
– Fiona Ord-Shrimpton, Editor/Curator of Track of the Day on All About Jazz, the world’s biggest jazz website
“Ralph Hepola’s Tuba carves out a place for the much-maligned horn in modern jazz.”
“The virtuoso tuba player leads his quartet through a set of his freewheeling originals, playing with remarkable fluency as the lead instrument. With the release of Tuba, Ralph Hepola shows that not only is his instrument worthy of being a lead voice in jazz, but that he is one of the finest tuba players on the scene today.”
– Jazz Promo Services press release, based in New York, and part of the Big Apple Jazz Scene for more than twenty-five years
“Hey Jazz Fans – Ready for Some Hipster Heptones? Veteran tuba master Ralph Hepola creates a dynamic, supremely soulful new lead voice for the idiom on his eclectic debut album Tuba.”
– Jonathan Widran, a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Downbeat, All Music Guide
“Ralph Hepola makes a strong case for the tuba as a lead instrument in jazz.”
“The songs on Tuba cover a wide range of styles. Ralph Hepola’s tuba somehow sounds natural in all of these different styles, playing with the creativity and power of a trumpet or trombone but in his own personal voice.”
– Scott Yanow, author of thirteen books on jazz
The Lord is my strength and my song. – Exodus 15:2