Den Sessions with Alison Shearer

Alison Shearer is a saxophonist with tremendous style, lyricism, and intuition whose talents have brought her around the world. Since graduating from the Manhattan School of Music in 2010, Alison Shearer has been involved in many diverse musical projects. Her debut album, I Am You, will be out in the early part of 2016.

Alison's love for music began early on, and by age 8 she was already an accomplished flute player. Practicing was always fun for Alison, which helped her get into many advanced groups and programs throughout her childhood. Alison attended the Manhattan school of Music precollege during high school, now with a focus on saxophone, which affirmed her love of jazz set the tone for the career ahead of her.

College at the Manhattan School of Music introduced Alison to many of the musicians she works with today. One of the notable groups to emerge from MSM during Alison's time was PitchBlak Brass Band, a ten piece hip-hop brass band that has received critical acclaim from publications like DownBeat and Live for Live Music. Alison is a founding member of PitchBlak and has toured with the group extensively since its beginning in 2010. PitchBlak's debut album "You See Us" was released in 2014.

In addition to playing with PitchBlak, Alison is a member of FlowState, the contemporary classical ensemble led by guitarist and composer Ben Brody. Flowstate's sel-ftitled EP was featured on NPR's New Sounds in 2014, and their second EP will be out in December of 2015.

In 2013 Alison formed her own group, Alison Shearer Group, which is now her main musical focus. Alison has been writing a tremendous amount of music for this group, which features guitarist Sean Richey, keyboardist Conun Pappas, bassist Dylan Shamat and drummer Mike Gordon. The group has been playing regularly in the tristate area and will be releasing their debut album, "I Am You" in January of 2016.