Charlotte Alexander is an up and coming Toronto-based brass musician, specializing in French Horn. She performs across Ontario in genres from classical to jazz, hip hop to musicals, and brass band to klezmer. Her performances have taken her to the stages of many venues in Toronto, including The Opera House, Lee’s Palace, The Rex Hotel Jazz and Blues Bar, and The Garrison. She has recorded on Bangerz Brass’s self-titled album, released in 2019, Dwayne Gretzky’s “A Night at the Opera House”, released in 2020, and Marie Goudy’s “The Bitter Suite”, released in 2018, in which her “contribution bolsters [Goudy’s] argument that there’s simply not enough French horn on modern jazz recordings” – Marie Goudy, The Republic of Jazz.
With a growing passion for equality in education, Charlotte designed a free two-day workshop in 2018 called “Boom-Bam Brass and Emcees” with the Rising Youth grant from Toronto Arts Council for women and non-binary folks to learn from female hip-hop artists. She also assisted with the organisation of a free four-day workshop in 2019 held at the Scarborough Museum with the Animating Historic Sites grant from Toronto Arts Council for youth in low-income households. She teaches private lessons on her own as well as group lessons at Branksome Hall and Rosedale Heights School of the Arts. She has also been on staff at the National Music Camp of Canada for 5 years, with the last year as senior staff.
In 2019, Charlotte completed a classical performance degree in French Horn from the University of Toronto. During her education there, she was often first chair in the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, the University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra, and the Hannaford Youth Band (which she is still a part of today). She also played in many brass quintets, woodwind quintets, french horn quartets and contemporary music ensembles, and took every playing opportunity available to her.
