Alex Paxton is a composer, performer and educator based in London. He started building relationships with pianos at young age and at eight years old thought it was high time he played baritone horn in a brass band. Alex was soon promoted to trombone and spent the next ten years playing constantly, only taking it away from his lips to write music and make friends.
In 2009 Alex entered the Royal Academy and studied jazz trombone, composition and pedagogy. Whilst at RAM he was awarded the Evan Senior Scholarship and the J E West Prize. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music (Bmus – 1stclass).
Alex has been teaching music and leading workshops for ten years. It is a very important and serious part of his career. He currently works as a music tutor and workshop leader for a number or schools and music services.
As a professional trombone player he has played an expansive repertoire of music rangingfrom performing as a soloist with a symphony orchestra to playing in musicals, big bands, rock cohorts and free jazz consorts.
In 2013 he was the winner of the "Ludlow English Song Composers Competition" (Finizi Friends). He is currently at Royal College of Music as the Ian Evans Lombe Scholar for 2014/2016 studying with Mark Anthony Turnage and Jonathan Cole. Further funding provided from the Henry Wood Trust & Music Students' Hostel Trust.
Alex is a prolific composer, his writing is quirky, furious and has a wide range of influences including jazz and other rhythmic music. He has written concert music, operas, vocal music, music theatre, musical theatre, music for theatre, jazz, music for film and music for amateur musicians. Alex is especially interested in working with text, improvising musicians and theatrical settings. In 2014 he was an assistant orchestrator to Christopher Austinfor "An American in Paris" to open at Théâtre du Châtelet Paris inDecember 2014 and The Palace theatre Broadway NYC in March 2015. His opera "The Equivocal Harriet Bowdler" was performed at the Cockpit theatre and at the Forge Camden last year.
Alex Paxton writes incredible bespoke music for the students at Pelican to play and sing. You can listen to some of them on his SoundCloud!