About Alexandra

Alexandra believes 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 inspired by the trust, generosity, and shared artistry that allow music to reveal something true, both within ourselves and in one another.

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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. Her path has never been about choosing one musical world and staying inside it. She is 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.

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A Musical Life Built on Curiosity

That curiosity has deep roots in Alexandra’s upbringing. Music was woven into her family life from the beginning. Alexandra often sat between them at church every Sunday, as her mother sang alto and her father sang bass, the only two people in the congregation singing those parts. From an early age, she experienced music not as something separate from everyday life, but as something to listen to, participate in, and explore.

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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. When he was immersing himself in jazz drumming, the two watched countless jazz documentaries together as he sought to absorb as much as he could. He played classical music for Alexandra while she slept as a baby and, as she grew up, brought quintessential jazz albums into grocery store runs, fishing trips, and car rides, 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.

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From her mother, Beverly, 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. Music was something she felt as much as she heard, and Alexandra credits her mother with teaching her to let music move through the body with joy, feeling, and abandon.

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Both of her parents kept collections of live recordings that filled the house. 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.

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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.

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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.

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She was not simply listening; she was investigating.

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Alexandra has long been drawn to artists who refuse to fit neatly into a single category. Phil Collins is one example of an artist she looks to for inspiration, not simply for the music he created, but for the way he moved between musical worlds, absorbing influences and allowing them to coexist in his work. Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and many others have similarly shaped her artistic imagination. 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.

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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.

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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.

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Her work moves fluidly between jazz, choral music, folk traditions, classical repertoire, musical theatre, composition, and education, not because she is interested in doing everything, but because each musical world has something to teach her.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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She studied musical theatre and classical vocal performance at the University at Buffalo and leads 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.

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At the center of Alexandra’s work is a simple 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 make alone.