Martha Ann Brookes

Martha Ann Brookes hails from Dunfermline, Fife, and started her brass training on the cornet with the local Salvation Army band. When aged 12, she saw the light, and transferred onto the trombone. After studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she won the Governors Recital Prize for Brass Playing, she represented Scotland in the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra. She continued her studies at the National Centre for Orchestral Studies, which included a Concerto performance with the Orchestra.

In 1993, immediately following studies, she moved to Paris to be a member of the L’Orchestre Symphonie d’Europe, followed by joining the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra as their 2^nd Trombonist. The lure of wedding bells called Martha Ann back to Britain, where she has lived for the past 28 years with her family in Birmingham. There, she has a busy schedule of being Principal Trombone with both Sinfonia Viva and Orchestra of the Swan, as well as free-lancing. She is very involved in teaching, and is a passionate chamber music player, having been a founder member of In-Slide-Out and is also a member of the English Trombone Consort (both trombone quartets).

What little time she has left is spent involved in church music, running a Sunday school class, knitting, Musician Union events, representing the British Trombone Society in the Midlands area, and trying to play badminton.