Judith Saxton

Session: Enhance Excellence.

Judith Saxton enjoys a multi-faceted thirty-year career as an international concert and recording artist, chamber, orchestral, liturgical musician and improviser, and educator. A Certified Alexander Technique Teacher (ATI) and Registered Somatic Movement Educator (RSME), Judith aims to embody those mindful/bodyful principles in her teaching and all her interactions.

As a recitalist, Ms. Saxton has performed in the UK, China, Finland and Brasil, and concertizes nationally and records with organist Timothy Olsen, Landfall (2020) saxtonolsenduohearnow.com The American and French Muses (2017); and with Allison Gagnon, piano Concert and Contest Pieces for Trumpet (2011 ITG CD).  As principal and soloist, she leads the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, and is on Eastern Music Festival (EMF) faculty with whom she records annually under Gerard Schwarz’s leadership. She can be heard regularly with orchestral and chamber organizations across the eastern seaboard of the US, and has offered over 200 master classes at conservatories, festivals, conferences and Eldercare facilities world-wide as a Conn-Selmer artist/clinician, including ITG, EMF, Road Scholar, Trumpet Festival of the South East and International Women’s Brass Conferences.

A keen advocate of new music, she continues to ardently promote, co-commission and premiere and compose new works; in this capacity, she has soloed with a variety of orchestras and bands in the US and abroad. Ms. Saxton’s 2020 compositions can be heard on her Landfall CD and EMF’s Virtual Chamber festival.

For several seasons, Judith was principal and soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Illinois, South Bend, Illinois Chamber, Wichita, and Key West/South Florida Symphonies, New York Women’s Ensemble and Virginia’s Blue Ridge Music Festival.  She was guest principal for the St. Louis Symphony and extra with Chicago, Milwaukee, Grant Park, Sydney (Australia) and Harrisburg Symphonies. In demand as a versatile musician during her decades-long freelance career, Judith performed a variety of shows, commercials, recording sessions, big bands and combos from Hong Kong to Chicago.

Chamber credits include Chicago Symphony Brass Quintet, Southeast Chamber Brass, Wichita Brass Quintet, UNCSA brass quintet and Jazz Septet, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Sierra Brass, Musica Harmonica, Tromba Mundi, Millar and Monarch Brass ensembles.  She was North Carolina Brass Band’s founding principal solo cornet and soloist for two seasons and soloist for their first two recordings. A full-time member of two dozen ensembles, she has recorded for over 20 labels. She has written and recorded for Vincent Cichowicz Long Tone Studies and Flow Studies Volumes 1 and 2, and has contributed frequently to the ITG Journal and the Brass Herald.

Past teaching positions include ten years at University of North Carolina School of the Arts as Trumpet Artist/Faculty and Brass/Percussion Chair, tenured Associate Professor at Wichita State University, and positions with Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Illinois Wesleyan and Northeastern Illinois Universities.

Ms. Saxton has been a board member for EMF, ITG, National Trumpet Competition, International Women’s Brass Conference, and Fulbright National Screening Committee. A graduate of Mansfield (PA) and Northwestern Universities, Saxton’s most influential teachers were Vincent Cichowicz, Arnold Jacobs, William Scarlett, Susan Slaughter and Michael Galloway.

Judith relishes meeting her colleagues and new students in her worldwide guest artist residencies, and coaching Trumpet/Brass, Alexander Technique, Brain/Body Connection and LIFE through her ‘Free Flow Studio’, NC/Online.   Her trumpet students can be found performing and teaching around the globe. In 2019, Judith joined less than 1 % of the population and hiked Rim-to-Rim of the Grand Canyon. Judithsaxton.com