About Alexandra
Alexandra has believed since the first moment she can remember, that the most meaningful musical experiences are created when individual voices come together in service of something greater than themselves. Whether singing with a choir, improvising with a jazz ensemble, composing for fellow musicians, collaborating onstage, teaching a classroom, or sharing music with an audience, she is constantly inspired by the trust, generosity, and shared artistry that allow music to reveal TRUTH.
A Buffalo-based vocalist, educator, composer, and artistic collaborator, Alexandra has spent the past decade building a career across jazz, choral music, musical theatre, arts education, composition, wellness, and interdisciplinary performance. She is constantly drawn to experiences that help her better understand herself and the world around her, finding particular joy in the challenge of trying something new, exploring unfamiliar terrain, and learning from the people she encounters along the way.
A Musical Life Built on Curiosity
From an early age, Alexandra experienced music as something to let her imagination run wild to, intensely listen to, actively participate in, and constantly explore within.
That curiosity has deep roots in her upbringing; music was woven into her family life from the beginning. Alexandra often sat between her parents at church every Sunday, experiencing music as a gateway to spirituality, as her mother sang alto and her father sang bass on either side of her, the only two people in the congregation singing those parts. From an early age, she experienced music as something to listen to, participate in, and explore.
Her father, Raymond, has been a musician his entire life, moving across musical worlds himself, from playing rock guitar, to studying violin in college, to studying drums with Lou Marino when Alexandra was in grade school, to exploring jazz theory and harmony through the guitar in recent years. When he was immersing himself in jazz drumming in the 2000's, the two watched countless jazz documentaries together, attend live instrumental jazz performances, as he sought to completely absorb as much as he could. He played classical music for Alexandra while she slept as a baby (thank you, Classical 94.5!), and as she grew up, brought quintessential albums to her ears, from swing to jazz fusion, progressive rock albums, into grocery store runs, fishing trips, and the long car rides they often took together, often challenging her to listen for complex time signatures, rhythmic patterns, and other details in the music he was studying himself. Watching her father continually become a student of something new taught Alexandra that there was ALWAYS more to discover in music, and that being a musician could mean remaining curious for an entire lifetime, just as he did.
From her mother, Beverly, and her family, Alexandra encountered another musical world: soul, spirituals, gospel, Motown, blues, and the rich traditions of Black American music. From her, she inherited not only a love of these sounds, but a fiery passion for rhythm, groove, and movement. Her mother sang to Alexandra constantly before she was born, filling the womb with her voice and unknowingly weaving a connection between mother, child, and music that would last a lifetime. Long before Alexandra understood melody, harmony, or rhythm, she knew the sound of her mother’s voice, and the heart, feeling, and intention behind it.
It was not only her mother’s voice that shaped her, but the way she used it: with warmth, soul, instinct, playfulness, and feeling. Through her, Alexandra learned that a voice could hold memory, emotion, identity, longing, joy, and love. Her mother unknowingly became Alexandra’s first teacher in the language of feeling, connecting her to the places within the soul where words cannot always reach.
Music has always been something Alexandra felt as deeply as she heard. She credits her mother with teaching her, long before she had the words to understand it, that music could be felt in the body, carried in the spirit, and expressed with joy, rhythm, feeling, and abandon.
Both of her parents kept collections of albums, specifically live performance recordings, that filled the house at all times. Alexandra listened closely, often imagining herself performing the songs she heard and picturing what it might feel like to stand inside the music herself. Her mother’s gospel recordings held a particular kind of emotional and spiritual weight. One Helen Baylor album, in particular, became a source of light and comfort that Alexandra still returns to today, the same way she watched her mother turn to that music when she needed it.
Some of Alexandra’s earliest memories are Saturday-night dance parties with her mother in the living room, the music turned all the way up and the two of them dancing together, waiting anxiously for favorite songs by Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, The Village People, and Earth, Wind & Fire to come on. She would savor every second before each song ended, already anticipating the next one.
When she found a song she loved, she played it relentlessly, driving her parents a little crazy while trying to memorize every part of it. She wanted to understand the melody, groove, lyrics, arrangement, sounds, and tiny details that made the song what it was. Alexandra has long been drawn to artists who refuse to fit neatly into a single category, not fitting inside a box and seamlessly flowing between musical worlds, absorbing influences and coexisting in their own unique, authentic way. She is especially inspired by musicians who are dynamic and multidimensional, who follow their curiosity across genres rather than allowing themselves to be defined by a single box.
Growing up surrounded by these musical worlds gave Alexandra an early understanding that seemingly different musical languages could coexist, communicate with one another, and each reveal something meaningful about the world. That musical inheritance continues to shape the way she works today.
Collaboration, Creation & Connection
Alexandra thrives on working with people who share her perspective as well as those whose experiences, traditions, and ways of thinking are different from her own. She loves the process of bringing people together, discovering what each person contributes, and building something that could not exist without the particular combination of voices in the room. Her work moves fluidly between jazz, choral music, folk traditions, classical repertoire, musical theatre, composition, and education, each musical world has something to teach her, and offers her a window to look deeper within herself, and deepen her spiritual connection to music.
Known for her expressive, multi-colored voice, nuanced storytelling, and thoughtful musicianship, Alexandra has cultivated longstanding creative relationships throughout Western New York and beyond. She performs regularly with her jazz quartet and other collaborative ensembles, sings with professional choral ensembles including Vocalis Chamber Choir and the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, and creates original music and arrangements with particular musicians and ensembles in mind.
As a composer and arranger, Alexandra creates music that draws from jazz, choral and classical traditions, folk music, and theatrical storytelling. She regularly performs her original music with her jazz quartet and alongside longtime collaborators and musical colleagues, often writing with specific musicians and ensembles in mind. Her compositions reflect both her diverse musical influences and the individual voices of the artists who bring them to life. In 2025, she composed and arranged original music and hymns commissioned by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, with Jessie Downs and Caroline Mallonee serving as mentors in the process.
Teaching, Embodiment & Growth
As an educator and teaching artist, Alexandra brings that same philosophy into the classroom and community. She believes music education should cultivate curiosity, creativity, confidence, and belonging, giving people opportunities to experience themselves not simply as listeners, but as active participants in the artistic process.
She studied musical theatre, jazz improvisation, and classical vocal performance at the University at Buffalo. She has since led workshops, masterclasses, and educational programs for students and communities of all ages. As a trained yoga teacher, she also explores the relationship between music, embodiment, mindfulness, spirituality, and wellness.
At the center of Alexandra’s work is a deep desire to keep learning, keep exploring, and keep growing alongside other people. Whether she is performing a jazz standard, singing in a choir, portraying a historical figure, composing new music, teaching a student, or stepping into something she has never done before, she approaches the work with curiosity, authenticity, generosity, and care.
She believes that when we listen deeply to music, to one another, and to ourselves, we become capable of creating something greater than any one person could alone.
