Vern Sielert is Associate professor of trumpet and director of Jazz Studies at the University of Idaho. From 2001 to 2006, he was director of jazz ensembles at the University of Washington, and he has also served on the faculties of Baylor University, Illinois State University and Millikin University. Sielert has also directed jazz ensembles at Normal Community West High School in Normal, Illinois. He holds bachelor degrees in jazz studies and music education, a master's degree in jazz studies from the University of North Texas, and a doctorate in trumpet performance from the University of Illinois.

Sielert has been a student of Jack Adams, Keith Johnson, Don Jacoby, Michael Ewald and Ray Sasaki. He has performed with artists such as Natalie Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Freddie Hubbard, Ronnie Milsap, The O’Jays, Bobby Shew, Michael Feinstein, Gerald Wilson, Claudio Roditi and Dee Daniels and in such diverse settings as the Bob Curnow Big Band, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Big Band, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Norwegian Cruise Lines and Walt Disney World. Sielert was also a member of the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band, which has recorded several of his compositions and arrangements.

Sielert maintains an active performing schedule with groups such as the Jim Knapp Orchestra, Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, Palouse Jazz Project, Idaho Brass Quintet and the Bob Curnow Big Band. His first CD, From There To Here on Pony Boy records was released in 2007. He can be heard performing on recent recordings by the Jessie Smith Jazz Orchestra, Unhinged Sextet, Convergence, the Dan Gailey Jazz Orchestra, Matt Olson, the Bob Curnow Big Band, the Emerald City Jazz Orchestra, Sierra Music Publications and Phil Kelly’s Northwest Prevailing Winds.

His compositions and arrangements have been performed by prestigious ensembles including the Count Basie Orchestra, the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors and Otto Sauter’s trumpet ensemble, Ten of the Best. His works are regularly heard in high school and university jazz ensembles across the country and have been recorded by professional groups in the US, Canada and Japan.

Sielert is also an active clinician and adjudicator, having appeared at schools and jazz festivals throughout the US and Canada, and at conferences of the Idaho Music Educators, Washington Music Educators, MENC Northwest Division, WIBC and the International Association for Jazz Education. He has directed all-state jazz bands in Montana, Alaska and New Mexico.

His jazz trumpet solo transcriptions have appeared regularly in the Journal of the International Trumpet Guild since 1998. He was host of the 2005 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition at the University of Washington and is looking forward to hosting the same competition again in the fall of 2017 at the Lionel Hampton School of Music.