Alan Carr

Alan Carr joined the Conservatory in 2023 as assistant chair of instrumental studies. Previously, Carr was director of brass studies and assistant professor of music at George Mason University. He has also been on the faculty at Bates College, University of Maine at Augusta, and Concordia University Wisconsin. During the summer, Carr teaches trombone at New England Music Camp in Maine.

As a bass trombonist, Carr performs actively and has appeared throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He is a member of the American Festival Pops Orchestra and an associate artist with the Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass. Carr has performed with the Alabama Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Dubuque Symphony, Hartford Symphony, and Portland Symphony, among others. As a chamber musician, he has performed and recorded with the American Brass Quintet, Barclay Brass, Ensemble Connect of Carnegie Hall, Isthmus Brass Ensemble, and the King’s Brass. He has recorded on the Albany, Naxos, Summit, and Peer 2 record labels.

Carr has performed at the International Trombone Festival (2016, 2018, and 2021) and also has been an adjudicator for the Donald Yaxley International Bass Trombone Solo Competition. He has given classes at Duquesne University, Ohio University, and Ohio State University. Carr is an advocate for new music and enjoys working with composers to generate compositions for trombone. In 2015, he assembled a bass trombone consortium to commission the Kleinhammer Sonata for bass trombone and piano by John Stevens. The consortium commission is backed by musicians in the Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Metropolitan Opera, National, and St. Louis symphony orchestras, among several others.

Carr is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory (B.M.), the Juilliard School (M.M.), Yale University (A.D.), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (D.M.A.), where he was a Paul J. Collins Distinguished Fellow.