My Story
Alex Laurenzi (b. 1998) is a saxophonist, composer, and arranger from Mountain Lakes, NJ. Through his participation in various education programs, he has shared the stage with major artists, including Christian McBride, Wynton Marsalis, Archie Shepp, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Gerald Clayton, Ambrose Akinmusire, Walter Smith III, Danilo Perez, Billy Childs, Joe Lovano, Andra Day, David Sanborn, Wycliffe Gordon, Jose James, Al Jarreau, Sheila E. and many more. A recent graduate of African-American history at Princeton University, Alex was an active member of the Jazz Program during all four years, participating in the Creative Large Ensemble led by Darcy James Argue, Small Group 1 led by Rudresh Mahanthappa, and studying privately with Ralph Bowen. Alex received the Isidore and Helen Sacks Memorial Prize from the Princeton Music Department for his contributions to the musical community at Princeton. He was a student of Jazz House Kids and the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Jazz Program, working with teachers such as Mike Lee, Bruce Williams, Oscar Perez, Ted Chubb, Julius Tolentino, Radam Schwartz, Michele Rosewoman, Jim Saltzman, and Jeremy Manasia.
His awards include two Downbeat Student Soloist Awards, 2016 for High School Best Soloist and 2013 for Junior High School Best Soloist, runner-up in the 2019 Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition, two honorable mentions from YoungArts Foundation, and two soloist awards from the Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival. Alex was a member of the 2015 Grammy Jazz Session Big Band, the award-winning Jazz House Kids Big Band for three years, and toured Peru in April 2016 with a select group from Jazz House Kids on behalf of the U.S. Embassy. He has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Blue Note, Birdland, Vail Jazz Festival, Somerville Jazz Festival, Princeton Jazz Festival, Montclair Jazz Festival and many other venues in the Tri-State Area, both with his own groups and as a member of various bands. Since moving to New York in 2020, he has performed at venues such as Dizzy’s, the Django, Room 623, and the Iridium with his trio and his sextet, along with Rachel Z, the Ed Palermo Big Band, and many of his peers. He was the music director for the Jazz House All-Stars with their recent engagement on the Blue Note at Sea Cruise in January 2023.
Alex has spent most of his summers since college traveling and composing for mixed chamber ensembles. In 2019, Alex received funding to compose a suite based off of Claude Monet’s Nymphéas in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. His “Waterlilies Suite” debuted in late August of that year and after a brief hiatus during the pandemic, his new-look sextet brought the piece back to life in late 2022. He was also a participant in the Lake George Music Festival’s Composer’s Institute in August 2022, where he wrote his first piece for string quartet.
In addition to his performing and composing, Alex hopes to continue his scholarship in jazz history, both adding to the field and using his studies to inform his music-making. His senior thesis, “Freedom to Freedom Now! The Expansion of Jazz’s Political Tradition During the Civil Rights Movement,” looks at the ways artists like Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, and musicians in the “avant-garde” engaged critically and musically with the politics of their moment. Alex seeks to continue working on this thesis post-graduation and apply the lessons learned from these musicians to our current political reality in his music.