Big Party for your Platinum Jubilee

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Alexander grew up in London from the age of five. On leaving school in the late 1960s he became a professional musician/songwriter. He spent a year in the USA playing with a 50 – piece band. There he learned to arrange and orchestrate, after which he took a BA in Music at Dartington College, Devon, followed by a PGCE at the University of London, Roehampton. He has taught music at all levels, from schools to degree students and lectured on Calypso at universities which include Brunel, Huddersfield, Leeds, Nottingham, Queen’s University Belfast and Morley College, London. Alex returned to his calypso roots in the late 1980s.

In 1998 he wrote a one – act calypso opera, “Rumshop” staged at London’s Lyric Theatre.

Publications include poems for “Hello New” (pub. 2000, Orchard Books), “Velocity” (pub. 2003, Black Spring Press), a chapter on Calypso for the Arts Council’s Carnival book “On Route” (pub. 2003, X-Press) and a chapter in “Creative Learning, 3-11 and How We Document It” (with Celia Burgess-Macey, pub. 2008, Trentham Books). Ethnomusicologist Professor Tina K. Ramnarine has done a fairly substantial assessment of Alexander’s work in her study of the Caribbean diaspora “Beautiful Cosmos” (pub. 2007, Pluto Press).

Alexander has appeared on TV and Radio in Trinidad, Dominica, Canada and the UK. From February 2000 until July 2012 he was Calypsonian – in- Residence for the BBC, writing and performing around 550 songs for broadcast on BBC London and other BBC local stations.

In 1998 he met Arthur Torrington, Chair of the Windrush Foundation. Alex was subsequently given the role of the Windrush Foundation’s Calypsonian-in-Residence, commissioned to write a number of songs celebrating the lives of many from the African Caribbean diaspora, including icons of sport, the NHS, unsung heroes of Black history and more. In 2019 he was made Calypsonian-in-Residence for the Equiano Society of Great Britain.

Since 1996 Alex has run his own small record label, Lion Valley Records, upon which he has released 15 CD albums/EPs of his compositions. He continues to do calypso workshops in schools, colleges and Immigration Removal Centres. He is also a member of the Association of Calypso and Soca Artists (ACASA) and has twice been UK Calypso Monarch.

https://li.sten.to/bigpartyforyourplatinumjubilee

Alex is dedicated to keeping this Caribbean art form alive, through song-writing workshops, performances and the development of younger practitioners in this genre.

[email protected]

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