Biography
Hollyn Slykhuis is a trumpet player, music educator, and administrator forging a career in advocacy for historically underrepresented voices in music and music education. She is the Co-Founder of the non-profit ensemble the Chroma Collective, which empowers audience members to be artists through participatory art and music making.
Hollyn has performed with groups such as the Du Bois Orchestra, Opera Louisiane, and New England Brass Band, and alongside artists including Ben Folds, Wayne Bergeron, and Hila Plitman. She has commissioned and premiered several works for solo trumpet, trumpet and electronics, and chamber music featuring trumpet by composers such as Lara Poe, Anne McAninch, and Samara Rice, and she continues to advocate for new music and the promotion of historically marginalized voices through her work as Diversify the Stand’s Grant Manager. Her work commissioning and premiering new works by women has been featured on I Care if You Listen.
Hollyn has maintained a private trumpet studio for 6 years, instructed group and private trumpet lessons at multiple El Sistema programs across the nation, worked with the YOLA program run by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, taught music abroad in Chile, and designed and implemented a music curriculum for students with exceptionalities as the Music Director for the LSU Prism Project. Her pedagogical methods have been published in the International Trumpet Guild Journal and presented at Music Educators Association Conferences across New England.
Hollyn graduated summa cum laude with College Honors from Louisiana State University with a Bachelor’s of Music Education degree, and is a certified K-12 music educator. She studied with Brian Shaw and Matthew Vangjel. She completed her Masters of Music in Trumpet Performance at Longy School of Music of Bard College as the Giustina M. Brosio Memorial Scholar and studied with Ashley Hall. She is currently the Development Manager at Levine Music in Washington, DC, where she also teaches privately and freelances.