Allison Philips, Brass (Site Coordinator)

Allison Philips is a Brooklyn-based trumpet player, composer, and educator. Philips is a trumpet player’s trumpet player. From the traditional trio setting to genre-bending explorations via electronics, Allison is always searching for new ground. 

Jazz Scene has called The Allison Philips Trio “an invigorating listen that probes, as Ornette Coleman did, the line between song and sonic exploration.” The group released their first EP in 2017 and  released their first album “Placement and Longing” in 2021. Philips also co-leads the “DeiCont | Philips Collective”  a group which Hot House Magazine has called “one of the most exciting emerging groups in NY”. The Allison Philips Trio and the DeiCont | Philips Collective have toured domestically and throughout Europe and Canada. Allison has also recently started a new, New York-based quartet project. Currently Allison is actively leading her quartet project with Neta Raanan (Tenor Sax), Isaac Levien (Bass) and Connor Parks (Drums). Their debut album “Make it Better” will be released on Dox Records on May 16th, 2025.

Allison has also performed with Alfa Mist, The Jonas Brothers, Japanese Breakfast, Sara McDonald’s “NY Chillharmonic”, Yo La Tengo,  Alita Moses, Sungazer, Aberdeen, The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra,  and many others. She has performed on many acclaimed stages, including  Carnegie Hall, The Bimhuis, Birdland Jazz Club, The North Sea Jazz Festival, The Bern Jazz Festival, The Festival of New Trumpet Music, Le Poisson Rouge, PENG Festival,  The Jazz Standard, NJPAC, and many others. 

Philips holds a BFA in Jazz Performance from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City and an MM in Jazz Performance from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Philips was the 2016 recipient of the Hal Leonard Collegiate Scholarship. She has recently been awarded a New York Foundation of The Arts “City Artist Corp” grant.  Between teaching and performing throughout Europe and North America, Allison spends her time commuting on her bicycle in Brooklyn and eating at B&H Dairy in the East Village. She is currently on the faculty at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and The Kent Place School.

Adriel Vincent-Brown, Drums/Percussion

Adriel Shane Vincent-Brown is a Trinidadian musician living in New York. Brown has managed to establish himself as a worthy contender and is already beginning to make a name for himself and his country. Growing up in Trinidad, his love for music began as a child watching his father Kenneth Vincent-Brown play the drums in church, the instrument that would eventually claim him. After secondary school, Vincent-Brown moved to New York to attend the New School College of Performing Arts to further hone and develop his skills. The New School is well known for producing top-class musicians such as Grammy Award-winning singer, pianist and producer Robert Glasper.

According to Vincent-Brown, the Caribbean has preserved African culture in a very unique way, especially through the drums, and has managed to create a sound unlike any other African-influenced genre in the world. “It’s in the rhythmic core of our music and it’s something that no one else has.” Despite his age, Vincent-Brown has a promising career as a musician and is prepared to continue growing and exploring all avenues that his career may take him. As for his plans for the future, he wants to get his own music and band up and running, as well as producing.

Charlotte Greve, Woodwinds

Charlotte Greve is a Brooklyn-based alto saxophonist, composer, and singer originally from Germany. She has released nine albums as a leader, two of which received the ECHO Jazz Prize. In 2022 she was awarded “Artist of the Year” at the German Jazz Prize. Charlotte’s large-scale multi-genre piece Sediments We Move was released on New Amsterdam and Figureight Records in October 2021 and received significant attention, such as “Best 25 Classical Tracks of 2021” and “5 Classical Albums to Hear Right Now” (New York Times). 

Charlotte has received several composition commissions over the past years and recently premiered Breathe, a co-composed piece for the award-winning vocal ensemble Lorelei. As a woodwind player and singer she is an active side-person across genres and continues to collaborate with musicians such as Laura Veirs, Chris Morrissey, Shahzad Ismaily and others.

Jeong Lim Yang, Bass

Native South Korean bassist Jeong Lim Yang has been a prominent figure in New York City’s music scene since 2011, collaborating with notable artists such as Jason Palmer, Oscar Noriega, John Chin, and Kenny Wollesen. Her debut album as a leader and composer, *Déjà Vu* (Fresh Sound, 2017), was honored as NPR’s “Best Debut Album of the Year.” Yang has also released two albums with the experimental Brooklyn-based collective *Mute*: the self-titled *Mute* (Fresh Sound, 2020) and *After You’ve Gone* (Endectomorph, 2024), both of which received international recognition.

In 2022, she unveiled her project with Santiago Leibson and Gerald Cleaver, *Zodiac Suite: Reassured* (Fresh Sound), a reimagining of Mary Lou Williams’s *Zodiac Suite* (1945). The Zodiac Trio has been actively performing across the United States and abroad at venues like Lincoln Center, SF Jazz, and the Angel City Jazz Festival. In early 2025, Yang released a quartet album featuring her original compositions titled *Synchronicity* (Sunnyside, 2025), collaborating with bandmates Mat Maneri, Jacob Sacks, and Randy Peterson. Her lyrical and melodic approach to playing is highly sought after by artists in contemporary jazz and improvised music.

Sean Moran, Guitar

Sean Moran is a guitarist and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed at New York venues such as Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, The Stone, BAM, Roulette, and Symphony Space as well as playing in Japan, Europe, and throughout the U.S. His music has been featured on WNYC’s “Soundcheck” and “Spinning on Air”, as well as at Merkin Concert Hall. He plays with the chamber quartet “The Four Bags”, the avant metal trio “Bassoon”, leads his own group “Sun Tiger”, and performs with many other NYC-based groups. He has been a regular sub for the hit Broadway show “Hadestown” since it opened in 2019.

Hailed as “A forward thinking guitarist”(Chinen) by the NY Times, Sean has also performed and/or recorded in many groups featuring a wide variety of artists including Jackie Cain, Briggan Krauss, Teo Macero, Ron Mclure, Stew, Earl Mcintyre, Michael J. Schumacher, and Pamelia Kurstin among many others. Sean has been a longtime faculty member of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where he teaches in the Jazz program.

Elijah J. Thomas, Jazz Program Manager

Elijah J. Thomas (he/him) is a Black Philadelphia-born, Harlem-based flutist, multi-instrumentalist, educator, producer, and composer/experimentalist. Elijah studied woodwind performance/improvisation with Dick Oatts, Tim Warfield, Jr., Walter Bell, and Dr. Cynthia Folio; composition with Kevin Rodgers, Dr. Cynthia Folio, and Dr. Maurice Wright; and music education studies with Dr. Rollo Dilworth and Dr. Allison Reynolds. Elijah has held teaching positions with Temple University Music Prep, Settlement Music School, Tune Up Philly (Philadelphia Youth Orchestra), Education Through Music, BASIS Independent Schools, and Carnegie Hall. He creates what he calls “enuff music”: music for Black healing and spiritual transcendence.

Notable work includes the commission and premier of his site-responsive work For Harlem for the new music organization Music At The Anthology, or MATA (debuted at the Kente Royal Gallery in Harlem, NYC, October 2021); collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble for their “Ensemble Evolution” partner program with The New School (2020-2024); winner of “Best Film Score” at the Pure Magic International Film Festival for the documentary short Fan of Cory (awarded February 2021 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands); and selection as one of ten commissioned composers of color to participate in the inaugural “Composing Inclusion” program, a joint collaboration between The Juilliard School, New York Philharmonic, and American Composers Forum (powered by the Sphinx Venture Fund, 2022–2024). Elijah is Musical Director of the non-profit performance-based organization Honk NYC!