Joseph Alessi was appointed Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic in the spring of 1985. He began musical studies in his native California with his father, Joseph Alessi Sr. As a high school student in San Rafael, California, he was a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony before continuing his musical training at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Prior to joining the Philharmonic, Mr. Alessi was Second Trombone of The Philadelphia Orchestra for four seasons, and Principal Trombone of L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal for one season. In addition, he has performed as guest Principal Trombonist with the London Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall led by Pierre Boulez.
Composed especially for Mr. Alessi, he performed the world premiere of the Chick Corea Trombone Concerto with the Säo Paulo Symphony Orchestra in August of 2021. In May of 2023 he performed the US premiere with the New York Philharmonic.
Mr. Alessi is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School; his students now occupy posts with many major symphony orchestras in the U.S. and internationally.
Further information about Mr. Alessi can be found on his website, www.slidearea.com. Mr. Alessi plays exclusively on a Shires-Alessi model trombone.
Opera North bass and contrabass trombonist Christian Jones began playing at the age of ten,
progressing through the excellent Staffordshire, Midland and National Youth Orchestras. Appointed
to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2001, aged twenty, Christian graduated from London’s
Royal Academy of Music with first class honours the following year. A month later, he joined the
Philharmonia Orchestra and spent a decade recording soundtracks and performing around 150
concerts per year across the world. Since relocating to Yorkshire with his young family in 2012,
Christian continues to work internationally, with recent faculty appearances across Europe. Launched in 2017 as a study aid for students, Christian’s YouTube channel currently features over 100 videos of solo works, technical advice and orchestral and operatic excerpts. He is using the footage as part of a performance-based PhD at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he has also taught since 2015.
In October 2021, he gave the world premiere of the first ever bass trombone concerto commissioned by a professional British orchestra for one of its members: Benjamin Ellin’s Gresley with the Orchestra of Opera North.
Aside from music, Christian can often be found running in mountains and swimming in cold seas!
Originally from New Zealand, Blair completed his undergraduate studies at Victoria University
of Wellington with tutors David Bremner and Marc Taddei. During this time he won the Second
Trombone position with Orchestra Wellington, and worked with the Auckland Philharmonia
and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras. He moved to the United Kingdom in 2005 where he
completed a Masters degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London under tutors Ian Bousfield,
Denis Wick and Dudley Bright. After graduating with a DipRAM, the highest accolade awarded to performers, Blair moved to Norway to take up the Solo Trombone position with the Stavanger Symfoniorkester. He returned to England in 2012 to join the Orchestra of Opera North as Principal Trombone, where he has also recently performed the Martin Ballade and Rota Trombone Concerto. He has performed as guest Principal Trombone with many of Britain’s orchestras, including the London Symphony, Royal Opera House, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and Hallé orchestras.