Alessi Joins The Shires Family

As S.E. Shires has gone through changes over the past few years, their new forward-thinking model has increased opportunities for them to make new (and more) instruments. With the addition of the Q Series Euphonium in May 2019, and Steve,  founder of the S.E. Shires company, designing French Horns on the side, the name Shires is really taking off – not that it was ever in hiding.

On December 1st, S.E. Shires announced a partnership with one of the great brass players and pedagogues of our time. After nearly 30 years as an Edwards artist, Joseph Alessi, Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic, has developed a new trombone with the Shires team. The TBALESSI artist model is a rotary-valve tenor trombone that contains the following features:

• JA Bell: 8.5-inch, two-piece, hand-hammered “TI” taper in lightweight yellow brass with traditionally brazed seams, unsoldered bead, and special annealing treatment
• S.E. Shires Alessi rotary F valve with gold-brass F-attachment slide and bronze valve cap
• TGF tuning slide: gold brass, drawn tubing, with flanges
• TWJA Handslide: .547-inch, standard-weight gold brass; yellow wide crook

In addition to the Alessi Artist model, S.E. Shires has also designed the Joseph Alessi Q Series Artist Model Tenor Trombone. The Shires’ Q Series has become a major player in the market as it allows exceptional horns to be offered at an affordable price. Alessi not only joins the family of Shires artists that includes the names of Doc Severinsen, Michael Davis, Blair Bollinger, but he also becomes the third member in the New York Philharmonic trombone section to play a Shires-branded trombone following Colin Williams on Tenor and George Curran on Bass (David Finlayson is a long-time Yamaha artist).

While instruments do not make musicians, the continually growing musician is always desperately looking for ways to enhance their musical voice. This new partnership shows the constantly evolving voice of the Joseph Alessi from Bach to Edwards Thayers to Edwards Rotax to now Shires Rotors.

Click here to read the official announcement from S.E. Shires.