Alison Louise Balsom, Lady Mendes, OBE (born 7 October 1978) is an English trumpet soloist, arranger, producer, and music educator.

[5] Playing in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain from ages 15 to 18, Balsom studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,[6] graduating in 2001 with first class honours and the Principal's Prize for the highest mark.

Balsom was a soloist at the 2009 Last Night of the Proms, performing, among other pieces, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a jazz arrangement of George Gershwin's "They Can't Take That Away from Me" with mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly.

In collaboration with playwright Samuel Adamson, Balsom devised Gabriel, a play using the music of The Fairy-Queen and other pieces by Henry Purcell and George-Frideric Handel, which she performed with actors and The English Concert as part of the 2013 summer season at Shakespeare's Globe.

In 2014 Balsom was chosen as one of 27 artists, including Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Florence Welch, and Sam Smith, to feature in one of BBC Music's first broadcasts, an extravagant cover of the 1966 Beach Boys classic, "God Only Knows", under the name of The Impossible Orchestra.

[13] She appeared on BBC Radio 4’s long-running Desert Island Discs programme on 4 October 2015; her favourite piece of music was Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.

[14] In 2014, she returned to BBC Young Musician of the Year as a presenter of the category finals and semi-final of the competition alongside Miloš Karadaglić.