Bio

Karen Marston is the Chair of Music, Director of the Wind Ensemble, and Professor of Trombone at Mt. San Antonio College in Los Angeles, CA. A passionate advocate for representation in music, she is the founder of several successful ensembles and organizations promoting women in brass, including the International Women’s Trombone Choir, the TexiCali Trio, the Empress Trombone Quartet, and the LA-based non-profit She Can Play Brass.

Karen has performed and presented globally, with highlights from the 2024-2025 season including appearances at the International Women’s Brass Conference (Mito, Japan, and Hartford, CT), the International Trombone Festival (Ft. Worth, TX, and London, Ontario, Canada), Synchromy New Music (Los Angeles), the International Tuba-Euphonium Conference (Valencia, Spain), the Humboldt Brass Chamber Music Workshop, the Royal Northern College of Music Brass Band Festival (Manchester, England), guest recitals at Central Washington University, Cal State Los Angeles, and Washington State University, as well as performances with the Brass Band of Battle Creek, Athena Brass, She Can Play Brass, and the TexiCali Trio.

Karen holds degrees in trombone performance from the University of North Texas and Rice University, along with a Master’s and Doctorate in Music Education from Columbia University. Her teachers include Jan Kagarice, Dr. Vern Kagarice, Dr. Royce Lumpkin, and David Waters.

Past master classes and recitals include appearances at the University of Southern California, Cal State Los Angeles, the University of Texas at Tyler, Baylor University, Lamar University, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, Texas Christian University, Northern Kentucky University, Wright State University, Ohio University, University of Northern Colorado, Colorado State University, and numerous middle and high school programs across the country. As the founder of many successful chamber ensembles, Karen has also been featured at the TCU Trombone Summit, the Houston Symphony League Chamber Music Series, the San Jacinto College Brass Symposium, Menil Fest (Houston), Café Corotu (Panama City, Panama), and the Clarion at Brazosport College, in addition to appearances at major industry events such as the International Trombone Festival and the International Women’s Brass Conference.

An avid supporter of new music, Karen has commissioned and premiered numerous works, including Justin Writer’s Colors (2021) and Noelia Escalzo’s tango Two by Four (2024) for the TexiCali Trio, and Fátima Abramo Acuña’s Lotus Flowers (2022) and Stephan Mahpar’s Lady of the Lake (2022) for the Empress Trombone Quartet.

Outside of chamber music, Karen is an active freelancer and has performed with the Millennial Choirs and Orchestra (Orange County, CA), the Houston Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, the Ebony Opera Guild, Orchestra X (Houston), the American Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Composers Orchestra of Houston, Alliance Brass, Ambient Brass, and the Texas Brass. In 2020, she was a guest soloist with the Youth Wind Ensemble of the Pacific Symphony, performing John Mackey’s Harvest.

As a researcher, Karen has completed an extensive dissertation project on the causes and pedagogical interventions related to focal task-specific embouchure dystonia, with her work published twice in the Journal of the International Trombone Association. In 2020, she also completed an open-source textbook for college-level music appreciation courses, currently available for free online.

Dr. Marston is also an active arranger, and her works have been featured worldwide. Notable recent performances include her arrangement of the finale from Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony which was performed by the brass section of the New York Philharmonic in 2023, and a massive arrangement of Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony for the combined forces of the International Women’s Trombone Choir and Monarch Brass, which was performed at the International Trombone Festival in 2024.

As Director of both the International Trombone Festival and SoCal Trombone Day, Dr. Marston is a leading figure in the trombone community, collaborating with students, teachers, and artists worldwide. Karen has received performance and pedagogy grants from the San Jacinto Foundation, the Brown Foundation, the American Chamber Music Players of New York, and the Houston Arts Alliance.

Karen is an artist for Rath Trombones (England).

Education
Bachelor of Music, B.M., Trombone, University of North Texas, 1994
Master of Music, M.M., Trombone, Rice University, 1999
Master of Education, M.Ed., Teachers College, Columbia University, 2011
Doctor of Education, Ed.D.C., Teachers College, Columbia University, 2011