Alex Paxton
British composer and jazz trombonist

Alex Paxton (born 1990) is an English composer and trombonist known for his maximalist compositions that often incorporate elements of jazz, baroque music and new complexity.
Education and career
Paxton studied jazz trombone performance at the Royal Academy of Music before receiving an MMus in composition from the Royal College of Music.
As a trombone soloist he has performed with orchestras such as the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
As a composer, his music has been performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, and the WDR Symphony.
In 2021, his piece Sometimes Voices won an Ivor Novello Award. He was also nominated for an Ivor in 2022 for Best Composition for Chamber Ensemble for his piece Music for Bosch People and in 2023 for Best Large Ensemble Composition for his piece ilolli-pop.
Paxton was selected as the winner of the 2023 Hindemith Prize at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Paxton's debut record Music for Bosch People was released by NMC Recordings in 2021 and his record Happy Music for Orchestra was released by Delphian Records in 2023.
Paxton is a composition professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
The public source identifies “Alex Paxton” as british composer and jazz trombonist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alex, Paxton and British.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q130907539. VIAF identifies the subject as 17168651636807691954. The Library of Congress control number is no2023064210. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alex Paxton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.