The Brass Ceiling

Hi everyone! I’m Yael and welcome to The Brass Ceiling.

I am a trumpet player, but also a musician, and most importantly, a storyteller. I also happen to be a girl, and despite it being 2022, only 3% of trumpet players are female. Consequently, I have always had to navigate a male-dominated environment riddled with gender, age, and power dynamics… in other words I’ve dealt with a lot of crap and I’m sick of it!

The title of this podcast, The Brass Ceiling, is really just a play on the phrase "the glass ceiling"; this pun on the famous saying feels relevant as I want to bring to light the gendered struggle that female brass players experience which is preventing them from thriving in this niche, just as on a more macro level, women and most non-straight-cis-white-men have to navigate countless systems that were not built with them in mind.

I want to use this space to talk about our stories and our musical journeys, but I also want to use this platform to crowdsource and workshop ideas to make the arts more equitable. The goal is to find that sweet spot that is fun and nostalgic, but also rigorous and forward-facing. I’m hoping that by sharing our experiences, by engaging in dialogue about the systems that need changing, and by delving into music in a way that is accessible as well as palatable, that we will in fact be shattering the Brass Ceiling, together.