Today’s episode features Melinda Wisdom, who played with me in the California Youth Symphony when we were high schoolers! I am so excited to share this interview with you as she is my first female brass guest on this podcast, and we get into it! We start off by going through her musical timeline that consisted of constantly being put in her place and taken advantage of as a female trombonist, and her more recent process of healing her relationship with music. I also pull from a paper I wrote in college about brass sections being environments were masculinity contest cultures emerge, and how both men and women end up suffering. We also bring up the complexities that come with pursuing something that is considered so masculine, and how it has led to the realization that we need to unpack and dispose of our internalized sexism. We touch on the importance of representation in classical music, establishing support systems, and holding our male allies and peers accountable for their actions. We end on the idea of how owning your individuality when you perform with your own unique interpretations can make performance seem more palatable.