Piece Talks with Alex Clarke

This is the fourth episode in a mini-series of interviews with participants in the 2024 Jazz Central Mentoring Scheme. Organised by Arnie Somogyi (jazz bassist and teacher at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire), and Phil Rose (heads up Jazz Midlands and Birmingham Jazz), the scheme gives emerging young jazz musicians in the Midlands the opportunity to develop their compositional and performance skills, as well as their profile and professional network, under the mentorship of an established jazz musician.
In this episode I chatted with saxophonist Alex Clarke (British Jazz Rising Star winner in 2019, BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year finalist in 2020 and Best Newcomer nominee in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards in 2021, 2022 and 2024! We talked about how she got started on saxophone, her thoughts on social media and streaming for professional musicians today and how the Jazz Central Mentoring scheme helped her develop her writing skills under the mentorship of saxophonist Alex Garnett.