Dr. Travis Heath is Professor of Trumpet at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) in Chicago, IL, where he teaches applied lessons and conducts the NEIU Wind Ensemble. Equally at home in orchestral, chamber and jazz genres, he has played Principal Trumpet with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, Lead Trumpet with the American Rhapsody Orchestra and is Principal Trumpet of Camerata Chicago. Dr. Heath played lead trumpet for Ray Charles on PBS broadcasts and with MAS Records' blues band The Fins at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival in Cork, Ireland. His international tours include performances in Japan, England, Ireland, France, Italy, Czech Republic and Canada at prestigious music festivals.

Dr. Heath is an original member of the acclaimed Brass Roots Trio. Touring and performing since 2003, the trio has given performances throughout the United States and Europe. The trio has recorded four albums: Reflections of Peace (2004), Con Brio (2005), American Impressions (2008) and Brass Roots Christmas (2016). American Impressions garnered an invitation to a command performance at the White House for the President and First Lady in December 2009. A pioneer of the piano, trumpet and horn instrumentation, Brass Roots Trio has played to standing ovations and rave reviews in every corner of the United States and United Kingdom since 2004. Their tours have included performances at the University of Oxford; St. James Piccadilly in London, England; and the Chicago Brass Festival as well as on community concert series, chamber music series and National Public Radio (NPR).

In demand as a performer and clinician, Dr. Heath has presented at several universities and International Trumpet Guild conferences. His articles have been published in The Instrumentalist, The Brass Herald and the ITG Journal. His debut solo recording, Point of Departure, was released by the Mark Records label to high acclaim. Dr. Heath recorded the pedagogical exercises for the 3rd edition of Scott Whitener's A Complete Guide to Brass, a text used in approximately 100 universities. He serves on the board of Brass for Beginners, a pedagogical curriculum for starting brass players on modified natural trumpets, and is Director and Founder of the Chicago Brass Festival.

A fifth generation native Floridian from Vero Beach, Dr. Heath began studying piano at an early age, taking up trumpet at age 13. Two years later, he was selected by audition to perform with the Bell South Youth Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. While in Florida, Dr. Heath won the 1995 Florida Trumpet Festival Solo Competition and performed frequently with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and Brevard Symphony Orchestra and commercially at Universal Orlando Resort and Walt Disney World.

Dr. Heath holds a DMA and MM from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts, where he studied with Dr. Scott Whitener and William Fielder and received the John I. Bettenbender Memorial Performance Award for outstanding artistic achievement upon graduation. He holds a BM from the University of Central Florida, where he studied with John Almeida and Lyman Brodie.