what a great blend of experimentation and melody. Playful and instantly appealing while also showing great creativity and voice.

Vignettes

McCormack & Yarde Duo Featuring the ELYSIAN QUARTET
Comp. Andrew McCormack

Nice Cup Of Tea - McC & Yarde Duo + Elysian Quartet

Performance on 9 June 2022 at Blackheath Halls as part of RECONSTRUCT, Nneka Cummins' final performance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Performed by Alex Lyon (Bb Clarinet, Bass Clarinet), Ashley Brand (tenor saxophone), Rebecca Burden (Cello), Marika Tsuchiya (Percussion). Clarinet Sampled from a performance of the piece 'Melody Please' composed by Nneka Cummins and performed by Alex Lyon.

Chip Away (June 2022)

Commission: Südwestrundfunk for the Donaueschingen Musiktage 2022

Live recording of the world première, Musica Nova Helsinki, 3 March 2023.

Performers:
Mattie Barbier, trombone
Weston Olencki, trombone
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Janne Nisonen, conductor

Photo: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

where the dark earth bends (2022, rev. 2023), for RAGE Thormbones, orchestra, and electronics

Part two of a quintet of Maggie Nicols, Hyelim Kim, Alex Paxton, Isidora Edwards and Douglas Benford recorded at Hundred Years Gallery by Graham MacKeacham, Hoxton, London, UK. November 2023.

Alex Paxton, Maggie Nicols, Hyelim Kim, Isidora Edwards, Douglas Benford - Part 2

Written for and performed by Rhodri Davies, live recording from first performance in Cardiff, November 2023. Telyn is the Welsh word for harp.

Telyn for harp and fixed media

Performed by KMH Orchestra conducted by Jakob Aspenström

Held by Threads

for six players, electronics & video (2023)

video: https://youtu.be/4h4dmdcHO2I

Commissioned by Stomping Ground and performed in London in September 2023.

Kate Ryder - Toy Piano 1
Ben Nobuto - Violin
Maya-Leigh Rosenwasser - Glockenspiel
David Nunn - Keyboard
Clara Daly Donnellan - Melodica, Toy Piano 2
Pia Rose Scattergood - Toy Piano 3, Singing Bowl

https://bennobuto.com/love-games

LOVE GAMES

Rhythm And Other Fascinations 6.00

After the Rain (1983) for shakuhachi, violin, seven ocarinas (three players) and percussion (16 min)

Frank Denyer - After The Rain

Now We are Duh-Dur II. Duh-Dur 

Principal Flute - Taylor Maclennan
Principal Oboe - Lavinia Redman
Principal Clarinet - Alex Roberts
Principal Bassoon - Izabela Musial

Principal Horn - Lucy Smith
Principal Trombone, Trumpet & Tuba - Alex Paxton

Harp - Elizabeth Bass
Piano - Haruki Murakami
Percussion - Violet Beauregarde

Solo Violin - Lasma Taimina
Principal Violin - Kalliopi Mitropoulou
Principal Viola - Victoria Bernath
Principal Cello - Mike Newman
Principal Bass -Gwen Reed

Recorded in 2018 by Purple-tree Tapestry Orchestra at Pride of London studios. Supported by the Harriet Cohen Memorial Music Award.

Now We are Duh-Dur was written for a performance in 2017 at St John Smith’s Square by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Foyles Future Firsts. Supported by Leverhulme Arts Scholarship.


https://alexpaxtonmusic.com/Music-for-concerts

Now We are Duh-Dur II

Alex (1990),"A riotous overabundance of love and rage..an extraordinary experience” The Wire Magazine, is an award-winning composer & improvising-trombonist based in the UK. His Music is published by Ricordi (Berlin). "highly innovative...of exceptional creative imagination and musical energy, packed with life force unlike anything else” BBC Magazine Ivor Novello British Composer Awards.

Alex has been awarded the Paul Hindemith Prize, and Ivor Novello Composer He was nominated for the Gaudeamus Award for 2022 and was elected to the 9th International Composition Seminar and awarded a commission ILOLLI-POP for Improviser and Ensemble which he played with Ensemble Modern. He has been awarded by the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future commission CANDYFOLK- SPACE-DRUM  and has won the RPS Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, DANKWORTH JAZZ prize for composition BYE and was made a London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Composer. Alex played and recorded his concerto OD ODY PINk’d for Jazz Musician and Royal National Scottish Orchestra (RSNO). He was a Leverhume Art Scholar with the London Philharmonic Orchestra 2016-2017: NOW WE ARE DUH-DUR and has been awarded the Harriet Cohen Memorial Music Award for his compositions. His piece SPAKE represented the UK in the Orchestral section of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM). He is a commissioned contributor to John Zorn’s Arcana X 2021. "Paxton is a system-crasher of genre, who merges jamming video game soundtracks, musical overtures, virtuoso chamber music and jazz improv into an unmistakable style...highly complex, sophisticated and extremely entertaining, virtuoso ad absurdum" Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik

His albums to date as a composer: MUSIC for BOSCH PEOPLE and iLOLLI-POP released to critical acclaim on Birmingham Record Company/ NMC label and nonclassical. Listen Pony Label (TELLSONG), Indigne de nous on Everest Records and leading Spotify playlists. HAPPY MUSIC for ORCHESTRA released on Delphian Label in  April 2023. “This is the most joyous sound I’ve heard in ages!”New York Times

His music has been played/recorded/ commissioned by leading orchestras and ensembles including Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), Philharmonia Orchestra, AskSchöenberg, Riot Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, Wigmore hall, Explore Ensemble, Klammer Klang, Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), National Youth Orchestra (BBC proms 2021), Making Music (UK), Ensemble x.y, x.y Song, Hyper Duo, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO), National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK) NYJO, Listen-Pony, Aldeburgh Festival, Psappha Ensemble, Orion Symphony Orchestra OSO, Helios Collective, Chaos Collective Orchestra, Mirrors of Hall Big Band, Dr. K Sextet, 5KBrass Quintet, RAM Philharmonic and RCM Philharmonic and soloists Zubin Kanger, Tabea Debus, Beibei Wang, Patrick Terry, David Zucchi. “This is what an orchestra can be like in the 21st century: an ensemble that speaks with one voice yet also gives voice to each of its members” The Times

He has written six operas including NOGGIN and the WHALE (Massed forces including 500 young instrumentalists and singes) FOR the LOVE of THORNSTIEN SHIVER hosted by English National Opera and Helios Collective, BEL and the DRAGON as part of the Tête à Tête opera festival, the EQUIVOCAL HARRIET BOWDLER at Second Movement Opera and WOOLF MUSIC at the Forge in Camden and RAVEN’s CHILD for Jacob Colier and Orchestra.
“Operatic Game Boy music played by a virtuosic motley crew that’s inexplicably been hired to provide live jingles for a primetime TV show sometime in the recent past that never quite was” Point of departure

As an improvising and jazz trombonist Alex has played as a soloist with Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta,  Riot Ensemble, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), & ensemble x.y. He is founder of Dreammusics ensemble and performs regularly with pioneering improvisers (eg: Charlotte Keeffe, Steve Noble). “meticulously scored…seems to change with every bar, enfolding bite-size pieces of classic minimalism, brass brand tradition, electronic noise, & video game plasticity..intensely virtuosic and giddily joyful. electronically slathered trombone…Paxton is a monster improviser …connects his garrulous attack to the most extroverted playing of George Lewis & Roswell Rudd..." Bandcamp Daily Best Contemporary Classical.

Extensively, Alex writes art-music for musicians in community settings including, innovative ways of writing for young instrumentalists & singers in a post-Roald Dahl world of new-music.  eg: NOGGIN and the WHALE (Massed forces including 500 young instrumentalists and singes), Fly Like a Kitchen, Muffin, Pudding Tummy and The Sound of Magic. He is professorial composition staff at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and has worked as lead-composition tutor (and workshop leader) on the National Youth Orchestra GB, he has taught/ lectured at composition and improvisation at conservatories including, RAM, GSMD & RCM (and multiple universities in the UK). “one of the most exceptional voices from a new generation of UK talent” The Philharmonia Orchestra

Alex studied as a scholar at Royal Academy of Music (BMushons1stclass)and LRAM (Distinction) and the Royal College of Music (MComp Distinction).“a Brit who defies every conceivable genre boundary…an extremely modern and future-oriented style.” Paul Hindemith Prize winner 2023

Alex is an endorsee solo artist with Micheal Rath Trombones since 2023 (R12 nickel bell & tuning slide).

Now We are Duh-Dur II

AlexPaxton

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