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Fri 10/13 @ 7:30PM
Trumpet player Mary Elizabeth Bowden, who founded Seraph Brass, is something of a trailblazer and entrepreneur as well as a musician. She started college at 14, earned a bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and a master’s from Yale and performed with the Richmond Symphony. But she had a dream: she wanted to form an all-woman brass quintet, an area that tends not to teem with women players. That was the root of her ensemble, Seraph Brass, which she founded with a Yale classmate.
But Seraph Brass is more than just quintet. It features a core group along with a fluid group of guest artists, including rising young players. And it focuses on underrepresented groups in both its musicians and the music it programs and commission.
The group’s current core members are Bowden, trombonist Elisabeth Shafer, trumpet soloists Raquel Samayoa and Jean Laurenz, French horn soloist Rachel Velvikis and tuba player Robyn Black. When they perform at Oberlin College on Friday September 13, they’ll open the program with a new piece called Showcase, written by Oberlin professor Jeff Scott. They’ll perform multiple woks by women composers and composers of color, as well as pieces by Edvard Grieg and Franz Liszt. In addition, the group will provide commentary and interact with the audience during the concert, part of their project to make the music more accessible.
The concert takes place at Oberlin’s Finney Chapel. Get tickets here.