Alex Shaw is a Philadelphia-based percussionist, sound artist/composer, cultural producer, and arts educator working in the field for over twenty years. Intercultural, interdisciplinary collaborations and compositions merging diverse percussion traditions, vocal textures, field recordings, and digital imagination encompass his current artistic focus. He was director of Brazilian band Alô Brasil and a section leader in the award-winning Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra for over 15 years. He has also been a guest performer with esteemed chamber ensembles Telegraph Quartet and GRAMMY-winning Imani Winds. He has also been commissioned to compose original music and sound design for film, theater and dance productions, as well as media installations. Alex is the former Artistic Director for Intercultural Journeys (2014-2020) and has curated and produced dozens of performances and cultural programs.
Passionate about the transformative power of arts education, his career as a teaching artist spans more than two decades, facilitating workshops, arts residencies, and professional development trainings from the mid-Atlantic region to Hawai’i. Alex is a lead teaching artist for Young Audiences NJ & Eastern PA and World Cafe Live, the latter of which he has also served as a founding board member since 2008. In addition to his formative experience as an accompanist for numerous university dance programs, he has taught Brazilian percussion courses at University of the Arts, Temple University, Swarthmore College, and California Institute of the Arts. His teachers include Kahlil Cummings, Randy Gloss, Giba Conceição, Bernardo Aguiar, Gabriel Policarpo, Eduardo Santos, Nani Agbeli, Mestre Cobra Mansa, and Mestre Valmir Damasceno, among others. Alex holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA in World Percussion from the California Institute of the Arts.
I find an insatiable, curious joy in the intricate timbres of everyday objects, unique acoustic environments, and the cycles and patterns found in the natural world. My artistry draws in listeners’ hearts and imaginations to receive rhythmic tapestries and sonic textures both ancestral and future-facing. As a non-native practitioner of Afro-Brazilian and African diasporic music, I am committed to an integrity of practice that respects and upholds these legacies of resilience and liberation. As an arts educator, I facilitate the transformational power and intergenerational knowledge within traditional performing arts to activate creative spaces for self-reflection, intercultural understanding, community building, and social change.
Grade Levels: Kindergarten–12th This professional learning session provides a dynamic exploration of the sonic spaces and rhythmic worlds in which we inhabit through deep listening, sensory play, and hands-on collaborative learning.
Program Type: Professional Learning
Our daily lives are immersed in rhythm—aural and visual, temporal and spatial, and at times invisible.
Program Type: Professional Learning
Music Teacher
Music Teacher
“I would highly recommend this workshop. Alex relates well to the students and makes them feel important, included, and gives them the confidence to express themselves through drumming. Many of our students are from Central and South America and were very excited to learn about the traditions, music, and history of that part of the world. The overall experience was engaging and motivating. My students are asking when Mr. Alex is coming back.”
Music Teacher
Music Teacher
“The students absolutely loved their experience with Alex. They especially enjoyed how Alex incorporated their bucket drums which they had made in music class into the workshop. Many students commented on how much the enjoyed the activities in which they could solo and be leaders. A few compared their activities to snowflakes because each time they played together it was different and unique just like snowflakes. In music class the following week after the workshops, the students came in an spontaneously started singing the songs which Alex had taught them.”