Karen Marston
Dr. Karen Marston is a trombonist, teacher, and conductor whose work bridges performance, education, and advocacy. She currently serves as Chair of Music, Director of the Wind Ensemble, and Professor of Trombone at Mt. San Antonio College in Los Angeles, CA, and is the Director of the International Trombone Festival.
Karen has appeared worldwide at leading festivals and conferences, including Trombonanza (Argentina), the Brazilian Trombone Festival, the International Trombone Festival (U.S. and Canada), the International Women’s Brass Conference (Japan and U.S.), the International Tuba-Euphonium Conference (Spain), the Royal Northern College of Music Brass Band Festival (England), and Synchromy New Music (Los Angeles). Recent guest recitals include appearances at Central Washington University, Cal State Los Angeles, and Washington State University. She performs regularly with the Athena Brass Band and has appeared with the Brass Band of Battle Creek. She is also the trombonist and founder of several acclaimed chamber ensembles, including the TexiCali Trio and the Empress Trombone Quartet. In 2020, she was a featured soloist with the Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble, performing John Mackey’s Harvest.
Committed to fostering equity and inclusion in music, Karen has launched initiatives that expand opportunities for women in brass, including directing the International Women’s Trombone Choir and founding the LA-based nonprofit She Can Play Brass. Since 2017, she has also served as Director of the International Trombone Festival, which under her leadership has grown into the premiere trombone event in the world.
An active arranger, Karen’s scores have been performed worldwide. Notably, her arrangement of the finale from Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony was performed by the brass section of the New York Philharmonic in 2023, and her large-scale arrangement of Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony was performed by the combined ensembles of the International Women’s Trombone Choir and Monarch Brass.
As a researcher, Karen completed a dissertation focused on the pedagogical implications of focal task-specific embouchure dystonia, and her findings have been published in the Journal of the International Trombone Association. In 2020, she also authored an open-source textbook for college-level music appreciation courses, which is freely available online.
Karen has presented masterclasses and recitals at universities and conservatories including the University of Southern California, Baylor University, Texas Christian University, the University of Northern Colorado, Colorado State University, Central Washington University, Cal State Los Angeles, and Washington State University, among many others. She also works extensively with middle and high school programs nationwide.
She holds degrees in trombone performance from the University of North Texas and Rice University, as well as a Master’s and Doctorate in Music Education from Columbia University. Her primary teachers are Jan Kagarice, Vern Kagarice, Royce Lumpkin, and David Waters. Karen is an artist for Rath Trombones (England).
