Biography

Alex PAXTON

© Hannah Discroll

Alex Paxton, born in Manchester in 1990, is a composer and improvising-trombonist. He studied jazz and composition in London at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music.

Awards include an Ivor Novello Composer Award, Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize, Paul Hindemith Prize, Claussen-Simon Composition Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize.

Alex has released three critically acclaimed albums: “Music for Bosch People” (Birmingham Record Company/NMC Recordings), “ilolli-pop” (non classical) and “Happy Music for Orchestra” (Delphian).

Alex describes his music “like minimal but loads more notes like video-games but with more song like jazz but much more gay like old music but more current like yummy sweet but more stick like paint but more scratch like tapestry but filthily like prayer but more loud like loud groove and more rude like fingers and faces too but somehow more smelly like smelly things cooking with more chew and change like louder prayers that groove with like stinking-hot-pink in poo-brown but even more desperate-like than that like drums and Dream Musics …”

Upcoming projects include new commissions for Klangforum Wien and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, WDR Sinfonieorchester, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Wigmore Hall, Ensemble Modern (Now! Festival, Philharmonie Essen), as well as three new portrait albums with ensembles including the London Sinfonietta and Riot Ensemble.


alexpaxtonmusic.com

Work(s)

" Scrunchy touch sweetly to fall "

For ensemble and electronic instruments

Publication : Ricordi Berlin

2024 SELECTION

Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall composed by Alex Paxton, born in England in 1990, offered a sparkling piece of classical craftmanship that oscillated wonderfully between artificial pop and Apollonian neo-classicism with swirling polyphony.”

Frankfurter Rundschau

 

Alex Paxton, British composer/improviser had wowed me at The Long Play festival in Brooklyn in May. His Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall (Kite n Finger run) was vibrant ! playful ! Technicolor ! Asian flute songs, Bernard Hermann strings and synthesizer bird calls commingled with enormous arpeggios in a cartoon ballet.

Bachtrack

 

The concluding Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall (Kite n Finger run) by the British composer Alex Paxton (thanks to the Circle of International Ensemble Modern Academy- IEMA), recaptured the inevitably diminished attention with bright chirping sounds and ended with an example of musical humor: the ensemble had long since followed the conductor's cut-off when an electronic tone remained still for some time.

 

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung