Graduate Student Recital | Calm in the Midst of Chaos | Hollyn Slykhuis, trumpet

Hollyn Slykhuis is a trumpet player and music educator forging a career in advocacy for historically underrepresented voices in music and music education. Her work commissioning and premiering new works by women has been featured on I Care if You Listen.

Hollyn has performed professionally with the Opera Louisiane, Theater Baton Rouge, and the Cool Winter Nights big band. She also won a professional position on the substitute list for the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra. She has commissioned and premiered several works for solo trumpet, trumpet and electronics, and chamber music featuring trumpet by composers including Lara Poe, Anne McAninch, and Samara Rice.

Hollyn has maintained a private trumpet studio for 5 years, instructed group and private trumpet lessons at multiple El Sistema programs across the nation, worked with the world-renowned 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.

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. There she studied trumpet with Drs. Brian Shaw and Matthew Vangjel. She is currently pursuing a Master’s of Music in Trumpet Performance at Longy School of Music of Bard College and studies with Ashley Hall.