Alex Paxton is an award-winning composer & jazz-trombonist. His scores are published by Ricordi (Berlin).
He has been described as “A Magician of Sound...hyperkinetic rainbow-hued...joy & freedom” (Financial Times), “the most joyous sound I’ve heard in ages!” (New York Times), "A riotous overabundance of love and rage...an extraordinary experience” (The Wire),”a system-crasher of genre...unmistakable style...highly complex, sophisticated and extremely entertaining, virtuoso ad absurdum" (Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik), and “a super nova...a brazen sensorial mash up...riot and a rainbow...brimmingly heartfelt multi sensorial, genuinely energising fizzer of a new work...super charged joy...forces us all to sit up and loosen up and buck up” (Kate Mollison BBC New Music Show.)
His music has been awarded: an Ivor Novello, the Paul Hindemith Prize ("a Brit who defies every conceivable genre boundary…an extremely modern and future-oriented style”), the Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize (“Unbridled joy…sophisticated, passionate music full of pulsating energy and stylistic diversity”), the Elb Philharmonie’s Claussen Simon Composition Prize, RPS Royal Philharmonic Society Prize, Dankworth Jazz Prize, Leverhume Art Scholarship with London Philharmonic Orchestra , the Harriet Cohen Memorial Music Award.
Alex has released three critically acclaimed albums MUSIC for BOSCH PEOPLE (Birmingham Record Company/ NMC label), iLOLLI-POP (non-classical) and HAPPY MUSIC for ORCHESTRA (Delphian) as well as many smaller releases. Each has been widely reviewed and featured in UK, USA and Europe in broad sheets (NYT, Guardian, Times, Financial Times etc) and Music magazines (The Wire, Quitus, Bandcamp, Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, Crescendo, Positionen, Point of Departure etc.) He is a commissioned contributor to John Zorn’s Arcana X 2021.
His music is frequently performed internationally by many of the worlds leading orchestras, ensembles and festivals: London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), WDR Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elb Philharmonie Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Klang Forum Wien, London Sinfonietta, AskSchöenberg, Re-Mix Ensemble, Riot Ensemble, Explore Ensemble, Load Bang Ensemble, Sitron Sinfionetta, Ensemble Klang, London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), National Youth Orchestra GB, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, NDR Big Band, WDR Big Band, BBC proms, Bang on a Can Long Play, Paris Festival d'Automne, MearzMusik, Guadeamus, ECLAT, impulse Graz, Now essen, Klangspuren swartz, Wigmore hall, Klammer Klang, Making Music (UK), Hyper Duo, National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK) NYJO, Listen-Pony, Aldeburgh Festival. “Alex Paxton's fascinating score impressed me from the very first moment...the notes literally jumped out at me from the score; it was clear that this was a unique compositional voice, combining a complex, almost chaotic sensibility with a charming grounding in folk tradition.” (conductor Alan Gilbert)
He has written six operas hosted by English National Opera and Helios Collective, Tête à Tête opera festival, Second Movement Opera.
As a jazz trombone soloist “Paxton is a monster improviser” (Bandcamp), Alex has performed concerto-like pieces of his own with WDR Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Asko:Schoenberg, Riot Ensemble, Ensemble Klang, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), & ensemble x.y. “secretly one of the greatest trombone players in the world” (BBC Music Magazine)
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…connects his garrulous attack to the most extroverted playing of George Lewis & Roswell Rudd..." (Bandcamp Daily Best Contemporary Classical)
Alex has written extensively for musicians in community settings including, innovative ways of writing for young instrumentalists and singers in a post-Roald Dahl world of new-music. including: NOGGIN and the WHALE (Massed forces including 500 young instrumentalists and singes), Fly Like a Kitchen, Muffin, Pudding Tummy and The smelling test.
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, The Royal Conservatoire (NL) (and multiple universities).
Alex studied as a scholar at Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music.
Alex is an endorsed solo artist with Michael Rath Trombones.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
“Don’t Leave Me Behind” – World Premiere – Ensemble Modern, Wigmore Hall
July 2025
Wigmore hall hosts the cool kids. With his eclectic taste, imaginative aural palette and a talent for quiky, occasially barmy music-making, 35-year-old Alex Paxton is one of the UK’s most original voices....treats a catch melody to series of increasingly upbeat transformations...music to put a smile on your face and a spring in your step...puppylike appeal....tight as a drum...1980’s power ballad...deliciously cool.
Clive Paget, Musical America
"Delicious" - New Amsterdam Records
Released 16th May 2025
wild and wacky to a new level... invigorating... classical, jazz, pop, baroque, minimalist, maximalist, acoustic, electronic - are stirred together and served up in 13 delicious dollops... impossible to listen with a straight face... head of steam... Imagine one of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention tracks fused with a hurtling Conlon Nancarrow piano piece and you’re still only half way there.
Geoff Brown, The Times
Composer and trombonist Alex Paxton's latest project Delicious is a sonic explosion of his unique creativity... Coaxing this abandonment as well as virtuosity from the musicians demands technique stretched close to its limits - and it would be interesting to see how much of this music could be performed live... Pushing to the limits however is obviously what fires Paxton and the humour, playfulness and wildness of his music is in abundance.
Anne Templer, BBC Music Magazine
effervescent, joy inducing, fruit squelching, completely world building composer and trombonist...album called Delicious...and it is....friend of the show...veracious listener...spinning us in a disco ball
Kate Molleson, New Music Show on BBC Radio 3
Paxton wears his blissful mania on his brightly coloured sleeve... journey into the frenetic and the ridiculous... incessantly joyful album, bold and catchy, exploding in colors and melodies and thick with texture... a hopeful harbinger for the shape of jazz-adjacency to come... fast-paced, often comic, meticulously complex. It takes cues from video games, 1960s pop orchestration and 2020s pop production... clouds of counterpoint... sonic adrenaline... vying forces, but happy opponents, playing out scenarios in carefully choreographed dances.
Kurt Gottschalk, Jazz Times
wild, untrammelled, odd, enticing... turned up to 11... infectious exuberance... this is the indecent sweetness of Jelly Babies... jazzy rollercoaster-ride... “hanging out with your best friend, who you definitely don’t fancy. Not even a little bit.” It is intoxicating, and I think I might fancy the friend too... commitment to the weird... like a comedian who’s always “on”... Above all I was swept along by Paxton’s inventiveness and energy
Bernard Hughes, The Arts Desk
GENRE-DEFYING... electronic music; hints of contemporary classical music and moments that sound like a film score... inventive mind... unlike anything I’ve heard before... like being in a musical amusement park with thrills, twists and turns that are guaranteed to delight.
Craig L Byrd, Cultural Attaché
meticulously plotted, arranged, and performed, with contrapuntal elements piling up like mounds of sugar... maximalist on steroids, a voracious genre-hopper... astonishing formal rigor, sophistication, and an unerring ear for pop hooks.... dizzying riot of vividly contrasting lines, grooves, and styles, all arranged with mind-melting precision and coherence...love for fizzy melody and an abiding sense of raucous fun... extremely accessible in its tuneful generosity... a seriously entertaining and invigorating activity.
Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Album of the Day
Sound Strobe... kinetic, overflowing, and generous music... never sleeps, deliberately forgets his Ritalin, and his state of wakefulness merges with a manic episode... opens a window into the effervescent soul of the composer... perceives no boundaries... common thread of the score is the melody: an emotional starting point, a seeker of pleasure (the kind that touches the entire body)... thrilling
Bernard Vincken, Crescendo Magazine
a true journey into the depths of how classical music should sound in the 21st century... ballets of birds in full breeding season, colorful animal show with diamond flashes... break down barriers and codes, with feverish creativity... unique music deeply rooted in our contemporary world, full of life and exuberance, contagious madness and rainbow bombast. Vital.
Roland Torres, Silence and Sound
Paxton is an artist we need....a fearless high wire artist, never losing his balance and clearly relishing at every moment the challenge and the thrill...dazzling compositional feats...essentially a soundtrack for our historical moment...dynamic mosaic where no such distinction between categories no longer matters...Astonishingly, individual pieces ...music to make the skin tingle with pleasure, the eyes open wide and the taste buds salivate...blissful experience of sustained sensory exhalation.
Julian Cowley, The Wire
If music can change the world, this is one of the ways it might do it....a delirious, delicious pushback against sterility, tradition, formality and inhibition, through unbounded ensemble joy
Simon Cummings, 5against4
...this is orchestral, this is classical...sounds timeless...call it innocent? It is a delight to spend time with...smells delicious, it tastes divine, it sounds just right. It is one of the musical delights of the year so far, this is happy music, this actually feels like happy music…
The Organ
a maximalist delight...vivid and unexpected as we might imagine...only Paxton could put those together and create something so remarkable...alarming imagination... sheer bad-ass textures...we are more than impressed
Planet Hugill
“World Builder, Creature” – World Premiere – NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Alan Gilbert
Elbphilharmonie Visions Festival, February 2025
A world made of sky blue, snow white, crystalline sprinkled with sunshine-gold…Alex paxton beckons us into his 'World Builder, Creature'
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Unheard sounds... exciting distortions of time and space. Very clear and emotionally moving… life-filled momentum
Die Welt
jovial... playful, friendly, finely worked… bubbling sounds…. world panorama… flaring and shimmering… everything was so beautiful colourful… a playground for the orchestra to let off steam
Hamburger Abendblatt
One of the highlights of the festival was the world premiere of Alex Paxton’s 'World Builder, Creature'
Klassikom
Paxton can only be congratulated on the impressive premiere of his new work 'World Builder, Creature'. The composition focuses on human self-image and highlights facets of our 'human condition', making it both contemporary and timeless. In this sense, it contributed to a truly visionary opening of the Elbphilharmonie Visions festival
Prof. Dr. Regina Back, Claussen-Simon Foundation
"How to eat your sexuality" World Premiere - Klangforum Wien, Neue Vocalsolisten
Eclat Festival, Stuttgart / 5th February 2025
composer and jazz trombonist, always dressed in parrot-colored clothing, presents himself openly as a strange counter-model to the cliché of the intellectual new music creator.... uninhibitedly sensual, manically forward-moving music that has no qualms about mixing jazz, pop and classical music and wild sounds from the worlds of film and computer games into a hot, bubbling brew....Totally crazy and at the same time highly complex, cleverly done...like a Bruegelian hidden object picture: countless stories and details, the vulgar and the poetic add up to a monumental panorama...music thumps percussively, sounds like folk, flawless pop or film music... astonishingly intense and enjoyable..the most important work of this festival
Rondo Magazine. Regine Müller
“Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall (Kite n Finger run)” - Ensemble Modern
Frankfurt, July 2024
British composer/improviser who'd 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! ...enormous arpeggios in a cartoon ballet...wonderfully fresh.
Kurt Gottschalk, Bachtrack
"Happy Music for Orchestra" - Delphian Records
released April 2023
A Magician of Sound.
classical-jazz sonic blasts ...violently overwhelming...I was seduced, and am not the only one... digesting Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five band recordings, John Zorn’s Downtown experimentalism, Harrison Birtwistle’s brash blocks of sound, music of the Celtic oral tradition, Hildegard von Bingen’s medieval chants — and it all comes out, sometimes at once...carefully constructed ...forbiddingly dense it is balanced by its playfulness... hyperkinetic rainbow-hued...its joy and freedom.
Financial Times
Paxton will Make your ears ping..brings brightly coloured, loopy joy to our ears..sweet energy & frantic humour...It’s jazzy & noisy & oddly serious.
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian
an opportunity to revisit that early life carnival of sensation, to suspend the imperatives of orderly and goal-orientated progress and luxuriate in immediacy...wild imaginings...Paxton forges structures that miraculously hold together, while threatening constantly to burst apart from the sheer exuberance of his tempestuous orchestration...the orchestra seem to skip, hop or spin as the mood of the instant demands....melodic fragments flitter like incidental patterns forming across the brilliantly tinted surface of a swarming continuum.... conceptually sophisticated as well as irrepressible in spirit.
The Wire
a manic, full-frontal, maximalist music, coming at you like a freshly-unleashed tiger, with an energy that is inspiring & exhausting...African water drumming, free jazz, Ligeti, Roobarb and Custard...brave pursuit of a self-made vision...seriously intoxicating music
The Arts Desk
Playful entities... Over the course of numerous commissions and three studio albums Paxton’s has stood in defiance of traditional stylistic boundaries...uncompromising intensity...central to Paxton’s joyously maximalist aesthetic is an almost childlike innocence and playfulness present in so much of his work
Van Magazine
...some of the most genuinely extraordinary orchestral music you’ll ever have the good fortune to experience....staggeringly happy...unstoppable, continue-at-all-costs need to sing. Melody is literally everywhere... exuberant kindred spirits letting rip with the simultaneous elegance and zeal of football supporters....a demented dawn chorus...ultimate experience for the aural senses – it’s undeniably a superabundance, yet it’s also an unbelievable, glorious treat
5 against 4
Chaotic, frenzied and maximised sensation is the order of the day for Alex Paxton’s gloriously childlike...cartoonish world of blinding colour, elastic movement and warm humour...frenzied action...ecstatic surges and sudden lulls evoke a child gradually tiring themselves out with play...meticulous, finger-breaking arrangements. Paxton presents tension between raw, fleeting sensation and the restrictive geometry of adulthood...rich emotional expression...gorgeous, yearning melody...the difficulty of saying goodbye to a loved one is conveyed with moving realism. In focusing on raw sensation, Happy Music For Orchestra’s cartoonish character proves a disarmingly naturalistic, powerful means of expressing real emotion.
The Quietus
“Car-Pig” (from Zubin Kanga’s “Machine Dreams” on NMC Records)
released 2023
Beauty comes in all shapes...genuine musical worth topped by the manic onslaught of Alex Paxton’s Car-Pig
The Times
Fantastic delirium...An effervescence of day glow energy that just can’t be resisted” BBC 3 New Music Show, Tom service “sugar-sweet hyperpop-infused sounds break loose in a manic and overwhelming stream of consciousness
All About Jazz
Relentlessly playful...a manic frenzy of sampled instruments careening like a demented merry-go-round on fast forward.
The Wire Magazine
Paxton's full-throttle high-energy compositional style is totally unique...Imagine if the child of Frank Zappa & Bjork studied with John Zorn and then decided to do their own thing anyway...a vital, exciting and exceptional
Florence Anderson, Planet Hugill
Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize
2023
Unbridled joy…sophisticated, passionate music full of pulsating energy and stylistic diversity.
Jakob Böttcher
"ilolli-pop" - nonclassical records
Released October 2022
Fantastic delirium...An effervescence of day glow energy that just can’t be resisted
BBC 3 New Music Show, Tom Service
wonderfully imaginative, manically energetic world of Alex Paxton, music that never seems to sit still, taking us on journeys across myriad brilliant textures and timbres…imaginative and madcap…terrific roller-coaster journey
Planet Hugill
absurdly colorful…delirious sound universe of Alex Paxton is a staggering experience, vaguely frightening, demanding and joyful at the same time: abundant, teeming, teeming, overflowing, luxuriant, it resembles these wanderings of nature in an accidentally and exceptionally favorable environment, so nourished that 'they escape any rule or constraint - not to mention the law of gravity.….a hair-raising disc.
Crescendo Magazine
uncompromising intensity
Van Magazine
play solo that made the eyes sting and then use his slide to make farting noises and knock over pints on the front tables…’religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outburst”…In the hands of a master like composer / improvisor Alex Paxton, the trombone does all this and more. cheerful chaos – more Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em than Hellzapoppin’….crepuscular souls to perfection…Bone of his Bone Extraordinary.
The Wire
a manic, full-frontal, maximalist music, coming at you like a freshly-unleashed tiger, with an energy that is inspiring...good-natured bedlam... spectacular multi-movement work commissioned by Ensemble Modern: it made me think of Harrison Birtwistle but with a broad grin instead of dour frown...Sometimes Voice of Aphex Twin...Corn-Crack Dreams of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five transported in a time-machine...seriously intoxicating music
The Arts Desk
"Music for Bosch People" - Gaudeamus Composition Prize
September 2022
Fun and really rich, varied, dense, maximalist, fun, joyful and unafraid.
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