Chicago-area freelance musician and brass instructor, Chelsea French, received her Master of Music degree in trombone performance from Northwestern University in June of 2005.  She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from DePaul University. She has studied primarily with Michael Mulcahy, Mark Fisher, Charles Vernon, and Vance Shoemaker. 

Chelsea has played with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the South Dakota Symphony, the Brevard Music Center Orchestra, and many regional orchestras in the Chicago area.  Chelsea has received local, national and international recognition by winning the Chicago-area Musicians’ Club of Women solo competition, the International Trombone Association’s “Marstellar” Solo Competition, the National Trombone Solo Competition held at the Eastern Trombone Workshop, and was an alternate competitor in the International Trombone Association’s “VanHaney” Philharmonic Competition.

Chelsea was born and raised in rural South Dakota, where she began her musical studies on piano at the age of five. Her fascination with trombone began at age ten upon entering the public school band program in her hometown of Madison, SD.  She also studied voice throughout high school, but chose her niche in music as a classical trombonist before entering college.