Jon Armstrong is the Director of Jazz and Commercial Music at ISU, and has worked there since 2015.

He developed and implemented the new commercial music degree program alongside colleague, and then chair, Dr. Thom Hasenpflug. The degree was introduced in 2020.

Armstrong operates the commercial music program through a record label called City Creek Records, which is co-run by Armstrong and the ISU Commercial Music Student Club. Each graduating student from the CM program produces and releases their album on City Creek Records, with the other students in the students assisting with marketing, promotion, and social media campaigns. In this way, every student gets years of real-world experience with a functioning record label, which will be invaluable upon graduation and foray into the real world.

Since arriving at ISU, Armstrong has created new courses such as applied jazz, applied commercial music, recording technology, audio mixing and production, studio arranging, the chamber jazz ensemble, the commercial music ensemble, and the video game music ensemble (established in 2022)

He also hosts and produces “Don’t Call it Jazz”, a bi-monthly radio show aired on KISU, first and last Saturdays at 7pm