United States / New York
eGALitarian Brass Official Website
Kate Amrine, trumpet
Melissa Muñoz, trumpet
Blair Hamrick, horn
Julie Dombroski, trombone
Heather Ewer, tuba & sousaphone
Shelby Blezinger-McCay, drums
Group Biography
eGALitarian Brass is a classical quintet by day and a brass band by night dedicated to performing and commissioning new works by diverse composers and breaking boundaries of chamber music today as a classical quintet. We prioritize performing music by diverse composers and commissioning new repertoire with an emphasis on music by women composers, who have often been historically underrepresented in brass repertoire. eGALitarian Brass also performs as a brass band, collaborating with Shelby Blezinger-McCay on drums; performing jazz, commercial and New Orleans music. In addition to our performances, we have also presented educational workshops at both Rutgers University and Concept Lab, collaborating with composers on developing new compositions and writing for brass quintet.
eGALitarian Brass has been invited to perform and collaborate with the International Women’s Brass Conference, New York Women Composers, and Spectrum’s Female Composers Festival. eGALitarian has also presented recitals at churches throughout New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey. As a brass band, eGALitarian has performed throughout NYC at venues including HONK Brass Band Festival, Nublu, The Sampler, as well as private parties, parades and events. eGALitarian Brass is extremely passionate about recording new repertoire and bringing high quality recordings of brass chamber music by diverse composers into the public sphere. We recently recorded and released Cait Nishimura’s piece we commissioned “When the Clouds Break” and Zoe Cutler’s “Fanfare for Some Bad Bitches” and have plans to commission and premiere other new works in the future.
eGALitarian Brass has been awarded several grants over the years to fund our performances and commissions and we are so grateful for the support. In 2021, we received a Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward grant, made possible with generous support from the New York Community Trust, to fund a year of coachings with Eric Reed on our repertoire. We were also awarded a 2021 City Artist Corp grant to fund a free public performance featuring eGALitarian as a Brass Band at a women-owned bar in Brooklyn. We were selected as a recipient of the 2019 New York Women Composers Seed Grant to premiere a concert of music by New York Women Composers. In 2018 we were awarded a Juilliard Project Grant to create a music video project of Gina Gillie’s Brass Trio staged in various iconic NYC locations.
extracted from eGALitarian Brass website