We are a modern brass quintet dedicated to the world of contemporary chamber music.

We prioritize new discoveries, long term collaborations, and composer partnerships alongside musical excellence.

We're collaborative and open minded

Our highly acclaimed 2024 release on Kali Malone’s “All Life Long” was the result of a multi-year collaboration with the composer including scholarship, research, and prototyping.

Our musicians

Jahi Alexander

bass trombone

Award-winning Chamber Music

Anima Brass is a Baltimore, MD based quintet dedicated to the world of contemporary brass chamber music. Their most recent release can be heard on celebrated minimalist composer Kali Malone’s highly anticipated new album “All Life Long.” Upon its February 9th release, it was selected as The Guardian’s “Album of the Week,” listed number four on NPR’s “All Songs Considered” and reached number four on the Billboard Classical Crossover charts. Critics have said the album “will pull on the listener’s heartstrings” and leave them “in a state of transcendental bliss”. 
 
Anima was selected as the 2016 Aspen Music Festival and School Fellowship Brass Quintet, the most competitive and prestigious brass chamber music fellowship in the country. They have appeared in concert with the American Brass Quintet in both Salida and Aspen, CO and they were the runners-up for the Ackerman Chamber Music Competition.
 
As ardent advocates for expanding the brass repertoire, Anima is dedicated to commissioning and performing newly written works, particularly by historically excluded composers. The musicians of Anima brass have performed with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York City Ballet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Daegu Symphony Orchestra in South Korea, Reading Symphony, Lancaster Symphony, Westmoreland Symphony, Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass, and other ensembles throughout the mid-Atlantic.
 
The quintet is committed to presenting concerts in both traditional and non-traditional spaces. By contributing to local DIY music scenes and academic music spaces alike, Anima hopes to authentically connect diverse audiences with new brass music. Collaborations with composers and local artists, both musical and non-musical, are at the heart of this work.
 
 For a list of recently commissioned music by Anima Brass, please visit the “New Works” page here

"An air of devotion does indeed hover over this music, filtering through the stately intonation of Anima Brass and the a cappella singing of The Macadam Ensemble, as well as the quiet concentration of Malone’s own playing. Yet it emanates not from the rarefied air of religious sentiment, but from the composer’s passionate dedication to sound itself, and her respect for its potential capacity to realise, as the title of the concluding piece puts it, 'The Unification Of Inner & Outer Life'."

The Wire [Mar 2024, p.50]

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