Planning a career in music, like planning to climb a mountain, is much easier said than done.

Achieving success as a soloist is like achieving a successful ascent of Mount Everest. Many are called but few are chosen.

Alison Balsom, a young English trumpeter, made her mark as king of the hill on Wednesday in St. Cecilia Music Center.

Perhaps we should say as queen of the hill.

A notably large number of young trumpet players filled Royce Auditorium for the concert and cheered her on enthusiastically, culminating in a standing ovation.

Balsom's quite a package, beginning with the fact that few trumpeters are women and continuing with the fact that she's fetchingly attractive. Yet her true beauty is in her trumpet tone, at times warm and caressing, at other times radiant and ravishing.

The 30-year-old artist has chops. Her technique is solid, her stamina is evident. And she's a fearless performer.

The proof is that most of the first half -- beginning with a Concerto in D Major by Vivaldi, originally written for violin -- was on piccolo trumpet, a thorny instrument to play in any setting and a demanding one to play for long.

Yet her rotary piccolo trumpet -- a mellower sounding instrument more commonly found on the other side of the Atlantic -- was majestic on a quintessential trumpet tune by Purcell and magisterial on a Suite in D Major lifted from Handel's "Water Music."

The solo trumpet repertoire is limited, and Balsom played pieces that other trumpeters in the audience could pick apart -- if only she hadn't played so well as she did.

Her reading of Romanian composer Georges Enescu's "Legend" was brimming with romantic flourishes of melody decorated with technical splash and dash. Her accompanist, Benjamin Hochman, was a powerhouse of a player at the piano.

Balsom's version of Russian composer Alexander Goedicke's mid-20th century Concert Etude in G minor was flashy, but it also was relaxed. Her performance of 18th century Czech composer Johann Baptist Georg Neruda's Concerto in E flat, originally intended for the valveless horn known as a corno da caccia, had cadenzas with sparkling virtuosity.

Balsom brought along a talented, well-groomed backing band with violinist Jesse Mills and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, in addition to Hochman at the harpsichord as well as piano. Mills played with panache throughout the evening. Ramakrishnan shined on the contemporary pieces.

The more modern pieces -- a set of Seven Songs by Manuel de Falla and a couple of tangos by Astor Piazzolla -- both transcriptions, of course, gave Balsom a little more room to stretch out.

The de Falla songs were charming, from a lilting lullaby to brassy braggadocio. The Piazzolla tangos, the somber "Oblivion" and the spicy "Libertango" were pleasing pieces.

Balsom's encore was an understated rendering of George Gershwin's "Someone to Watch Over Me."

Keep watch over her. She's going places.

E-mail Jeff Kaczmarczyk: jkaczmarczyk@grpress.com "