Alex Chadwell

Alex Chadwell (he/him) is a musician, composer, teaching artist, facilitator and administrator originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and currently based in Lexington, Kentucky. His work as a composer is centered around the notion of “genre-fluid” music. The musical structures, harmonic language, instruments and technology he uses come from a wide array of genres which allows for the creation of hyper personal music. His music integrates non-musical and pre-recorded sounds, innovative production methods, and storytelling. As a teaching artist, he has facilitated residencies and classes with Brooklyn Arts Council, St. Nicks Alliance, the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the Center for Arts Education, Highbridge Voices and PrimeLife Arts Learning. Prior to joining the Lexington Philharmonic as the Learning and Partnership Programs Manager, he worked as an administrator at The New School's College of Performing Arts.
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All blog posts

Cultural Democracy in the Classroom
Alex Chadwell
04 May 2023

The first time I encountered the concept of cultural democracy was on a 2 train in Brooklyn. I was on my way home from my teaching artist residency at P.S. […]

Creating Space for Students to Make
Alex Chadwell
28 February 2022

My work as a teaching artist and arts administrator centers student artmaking. I have not always approached teaching and curriculum through a perspective that maintains the essential role of the […]

Title: 2280 Pasos Bajo un Cielo Nublado | Artist: Hernán Jourdan | Medium: Film

When I was asked to create a work of art exploring literacy, I wanted to create a dance but I had no dancers or a studio, so I chose to use my own body in the space I had, my yard. Fluent Nature is video of micro-choreography that explores what cannot be expressed with words, how nature has its own language, and how placing the human body in nature changes the story.

Title: What Is Me and What Is Not Me | Artist: Alex Chadwell | Medium: Music

My thinking on arts and literacy centers around the concept of literacies and artmaking as both sense-making and meaning-making processes that organically and inevitably overlap, intersect, and reciprocate. Compositionally, What is me and what is not me is a sound collage of sorts (there is no notation for the piece, and I'd be hard pressed to recreate it accurately) that abstractly and aurally represents the relationships between literacies and artmaking.

Title: A Curious Honeybee | Artist: Gideon Young | Medium: Film

Offering welcome through traditional and digital elements of literacy, A Curious Honeybee provides an experiential learning environment by activating visual, musical, natural, and emotional literacies.

Title: Tercera Llamada | Artist: Karilú Forshee | Medium: Audio

La Carpa Theatre is a project that I am currently directing in the Detroit Latinx community. The project aims to strengthen and uplift youth voices through devised theatre, in the style of the Mexican Carpas. This audio was created in the theatrical environment envisioned for our project. The ways in which literacies are re-defined are at the heart of La Carpa Theatre's mission.

Title: Literaseas | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite and ink on paper with digital edits

Title: A Riddle | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits

Title: False Binaries | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits