Paolo Dumancas
Paolo is a jazz trombonist, computer engineer, and the Co-Founder/Executive Director of ATX Artists for Social Impact. A Filipino immigrant raised in South Florida, Paolo studied Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University before moving to Austin in 2022. He is an active member of the city’s arts community and performs regularly at community festivals and jazz venues across the city. Paolo plays lead trombone for the Huston-Tillotson University Jazz Orchestra. His work is grounded in building multiethnic, intergenerational, and gender-inclusive spaces where artists and communities can thrive together. He is passionate about delivering mutual aid, strengthening arts education at HBCUs, and using both his technical expertise and creative vision to advance compassion, human rights, and class solidarity in his community.
His MCA Academy project, Jazz on Wheels - All The Things We Are, brings jazz directly into neighborhood spaces across Austin. The initiative offers free and affordable performances by professional and student musicians with the mantra: “Anywhere can be a jazz club.” At the heart of the initiative is a songwriting project that ties contemporary immigrant and refugee stories to the rich history of jazz as a Black American art form fuelled by the Civil Rights movement. The new works will highlight the lived experiences of immigrants within the context of the music’s lineage. Local musicians collaborate with dancers, visual artists, poets, and journalists to tell new stories about today’s struggle for Civil Rights in the face of current injustices.
