Music Performance with Alex H.

Having grown up with a father who ran a guitar shop and a professional singer for a mother, music was just another language to communicate with in our house. Learning to speak through music taught me how to focus and develop new skills, which helped me in school with everything that I have ever had to learn. In 5th grade I started playing bass guitar at home, trombone in the school music program, and private lessons for piano. This exposed me to a wide range of music very early on. When I was a teenager, I was the youngest person to study at Victor Wooten's first bass/nature camp in 2000, a week long master class with some of the world's most decorated musicians in Montgomery Bell State Park outside of Nashville. I played in local bands in the Berkshires, wrote music for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, and sang such roles as Valjean in Les Miserables and John Wilkes Booth in Assassins, as well played in orchestras across the county. I performed as both a bass player and a vocalist in the Massachusetts All-State Jazz Ensemble at Symphony Hall in Boston. I moved to New York to get a degree in Theater as a singer and actor in 2004. Since then I've been fortunate enough to work in NY orchestras, cabarets, theater and national TV, tour the world with a variety of musical artists, work as a studio musician recording albums for songwriters, and develop musical education programs. Most recently I curated and taught the bass guitar curriculum for Yousician, a Helsinki-based music app with 25 million users in 154 countries worldwide. That has been an invaluable experience, working alongside educators and programmers in one of the world's leading countries in both education and technology. Music has been a life-directing guide for me; from the wonder of discovery to the mastery of new and exciting techniques, music has always been a sort of way for us to communicate intimately, yet on a universal scale. To pass the same experience on to others is such a gift, and one I value greatly. "When words fail, music speaks." So, let's start talking!