Althea Althauser

Althea Althauser is an eighteen-year-old trombonist from St. Louis, Missouri who attends Kirkwood High School. At a young age, she felt drawn to the sound of the trombone at symphony concerts and gawked at performers moving the slides on their horns. In 2018, she was delighted to join Kirkwood’s Band Program, and naturally chose to play the trombone. She has studied with Matthew Banks, Marquita Reef, and Jonathan Reycraft. Her orchestral interest piqued in 2021 when she began a three-year journey with the Webster Community Music School. In that year, she performed with the Young People’s Concert Orchestra, and went on to perform with the Young People’s Symphonic Orchestra for two years. In the last year of her work with CMS, she achieved an alternate position with the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra. The following season, she played as a full member of the SLSYO, making the 2025-2026 school year her second season in the group.  

Along with her private teachers, Althauser would like to thank those who have committed and still committed their time to the musical development of young artists at Kirkwood High School. She owes her love of playing the trombone to teachers and directors such as Rebecca Friesen, Matthew Banks, Chris Bartz, Eric Chrostoski, Jeff Panhorst, and Allison Smith. Althauser is also grateful for the staff, faculty, and guest artists at Interlochen Center for the Arts, whose trombone intensives she attended in the summers of 2024 and 2025. She would also like to acknowledge, though there are too many to be named, the friends, family, and mentors, whose support enables her to pursue joy through music. She owes these past seven years of musicianship to these people, who taught her that anything is possible with tight corners, lip flexibility, and a lot of air support.