Alumna Alexandra Skevington is published by Trinity College, London
Alexandra Skevington (Alexandra Sarsby, Wadham 1994-1997) has had two piano pieces selected for Trinity College London's exam syllabus. 'Something For The Weekend' and 'Push Pull' appear in their Grade 6 and 7 books respectively.
This comes off the back of 12 months of growing success which has seen Alexandra's short score for Kish Daniels' film 'The Other Side' selected for live performance at Film Score Fest, Minnesota, USA as well as her taking third place in FFM's international film scoring contest. Her piano piece, "Bright Lights, Big City" has just won a Renee B. Fisher Composer Award and will be performed in May 2025 in Connecticut, USA, as part of the high school division of the Renee B. Fisher Piano Competition.
Perspectives, her album of 19 piano miniatures, will be released to streaming platforms on 23/11/23.
Writing was, if anything, discouraged in Alexandra's formative years in favour of performance. A multi-instrumentalist with grade 8 distinctions in piano, violin and viola, after Oxford she held a senior exhibition scholarship for piano performance at the Royal College of Music. Realising in 1998 that she didn't want to be a performer but not realising that composing could become her career, Alexandra left music completely. She continued to write for herself alongside building careers in market research and, eventually, primary school teaching specialising in maths teaching and gaining an MA in Maths Education along the way.
Alexandra was put back on a musical path by the encouragement of a friend to fulfil an ambition to sing jazz. Performing in front of audiences without having had any singing training unlocked the confidence she needed to begin sharing her compositions under pseudonyms. When these were received positively, Alexandra stopped hiding her work. In 2018, she left her job as a primary school teacher, taught herself to use Cubase and focussed instead on composing, teaching music, accompanying and singing with a gigging jazz sextet.
Since then, she has begun to build her reputation as a composer. In July 2022, 'Noble Spirit' was selected to be premiered in the Spirit Medley at Birmingham's 2022 Commonwealth Games Festival. Her music has been played on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 1 Czechoslovakia and she has been a finalist in the UK Songwriting and Eon One-Take's songwriting competitions. As 'Red As Ruby', Alexandra was chosen as a Fresh Fave by The Listening Post and cited as One2Watch by Metro News.
Alexandra's music is lyrical and aims to tell a story and convey emotion. She writes for a variety of musicians and vocalists as well as creating music for short films. Her main influences are jazz, French impressionistic music and house music. For more information and commission enquiries, please visit her website or connect with her on social media.
