Althea Althauser

Althea Althauser, age seventeen, is an avid trombonist from St. Louis, Missouri, where she attends Kirkwood High School as a junior. After deciding that she needed to play an instrument with a funky slide and a mellow tone, she began instruction on the trombone in the year 2018 through her school’s band program and has since been encouraged to take lessons with Matthew Banks, Marquita Reef, and Jonathan Reycraft, a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra member. In 2021, she began her orchestral journey with Webster Community Music School, participating first in their Young People’s Concert Orchestra and the Young People’s Symphonic Orchestra the year after. When her Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra membership as an alternate commenced in 2023, her love of the orchestra grew, and she continued playing with the YPSO at CMS. Since then, she has continued her participation in both groups, graduating to full-time SLSYO status for the first time this season.  

Along with her private teachers, she would like to thank those who have helped her throughout her path of musical development. On the Kirkwood High School band team (go Pioneers!), she has received support from former head band director Rebecca Friesen. There, she also benefits from the leadership and professionalism of Matthew Banks, Chris Bartz, Eric Chrostoski, Jeff Panhorst and Alison Smith. Althea is also grateful for the staff, faculty, and guest artists at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, whose trombone intensive she attended in the summer of 2024. 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 music to this day. She owes these past six years of musicianship not only to herself, but to these people, who taught her that the trombone could be well worth pursuing so long as she maintains her good air support, lip flexibility, and fervent passion.