Brighin Kane-Grade ’14
Bríghín Kane-Grade is currently completing her master’s degree in trumpet performance at UW-Madison, studying with Jean Laurenz. Throughout her degrees, she has focused on chamber music and expanding the brass chamber repertory (particularly in performing works by living and underrepresented composers), playing in numerous brass quintets, quartets, and trios at the university. Bríghín also enjoys doing orchestral and opera pit playing, and is an active freelancer in the greater Madison area- playing with groups such as the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra, La Musica Lirica, the Wisconsin Brass Quintet, and the Middleton Players Theater. She has attended festivals such as the Raphael Mendez Brass Institute, Apex Trumpet Symposium, and the Atlantic Brass Festival, and has been fortunate to play masterclasses for artists including Tine Thing Helseth, Mary Elizabeth Bowden, Phil Smith, the Mnozil Brass, and Marie Speziale. Aside from trumpet playing, Bríghín sings classically and in recent years has begun performing in the Irish traditional (Sean nós) style, and her work has increasingly branched into interdisciplinary art. Her first fully interdisciplinary performance work will be held in May in the new Hamel Music Center on the UW campus. Bríghín will be performing Stuart Dempster’s Quartet for Brass No. 1 with Annie Amen (trumpet), Cole Bartels (trombone), and Zach Bethel (trombone). Annie and Zach are earning performance master’s degrees, and Cole is earning a performance doctoral degree, all at UW-Madison
