Alex Woods

Alex Woods is an accomplished saxophonist, composer and educator, whose work has received strong recognition in Europe, Asia and the United States. He has collaborated with multiple Grammy award winning artists; Vince Mendoza, Metropole Orkest, Lalah Hathaway, Jamie Cullum and Charlotte Church. He has also performed with Rich Perry, Dave Liebman (NEA Jazz Master), Candido Camero (NEA Jazz Master), The Syd Lawrence Orchestra and Elliott Sharp. He has been featured on numerous radio and TV broadcasts such as Jazz FM Canada, BBC News TV Broadcasts and BBC Radio Broadcasts. The BBC, in particular, have followed Alex’s career closely over the past 10 years and continue to broadcast his work frequently.

Alex has performed in many of the worlds most prestigious venues including the Royal Albert Hall (London), Theatre du Chatelet (Paris), The Beacon Theatre, Blue Note Jazz Club and Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola (New York City), Paradiso (Amsterdam) and the Symphony Hall, Town Hall in Birmingham (UK). In addition to this, he has performed at many famous festivals such as the BBC Proms, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Wigan Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival (UK), Trondheim Jazz Festival (Norway), Den Bosch (Netherlands), Mingus Jazz Festival (NYC) and Cork International Jazz Festival (Ireland).

In January 2016, Alex Woods helped found the FROLIC trio, who pride themselves on their international heritage and strive to bring together different cultural ideas into the musical idiom. With Alex on saxophone, the band also features James Banner on bass (Berlin) and Phillipe Maniez on drums (Paris). The band recorded an EP in Paris in January, which was featured on the BBC and will tour Europe in 2017.

Alex is widely received in the music industry with a long list of awards to his name. Recent awards include the Yamaha Jazz Scholar Award 2013 in collaboration with Jazzwise and the Houses of Parliament (London) and the Bill Warman musician of the year 2013 award for outstanding ability. He has also previously won highly acclaimed awards from EMI Music, Fame Academy UK and Cork Jazz Festival.

From an early age, Alex was invited to participate in a large number of musical settings throughout the UK. He was a long-standing member and lead saxophonist for the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra; eleven time BBC National Big Band Competition under the Musical Direction of Dr. John Ruddick MBE. He was also a junior scholar at the Birmingham Conservatoire where he began his formal jazz education under some of the country’s greatest tutors. In 2009, Alex was awarded a scholarship to study at the Birmingham Conservatoire, UK where he received a 1st class honors degree. During his third year of study, Alex successfully earned a place to study as an exchange student at CNSMDP in Paris (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse). In 2013, Alex moved to New York where he was offered a scholarship to study at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music where he received a Masters Degree in Music.

資料來源：Groovy Life