Alexander Bone

Alexander Bone (born 8 September 1996) is a jazz saxophonist, pianist, music producer and composer from England, UK. In March 2014, he was crowned the first-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician - Jazz Award,^[1][2][3] where he performed with the Gwilym Simcock Trio to an audience and judging panel consisting of Julian Joseph, Django Bates, Trish Clowes and Jason Yarde. The final was broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3 in May 2014. He produces electronic music under the alias Boney.^[4]

Biography

Alexander's parents run a music course called Groovin' High four times a year. Alexander attended for the first time when he was two, playing improvised keyboard and harmonica solos, as well as drums. His earliest interaction with music production was a PlayStation game called Music 2000 which would allow him to compose and mix his own music.

Alexander started to play the saxophone at the age of six, taught by his dad. Within a month and a half, he had already passed his grade 1. He began lessons in jazz piano at the age of four even though he started to play before then.

Frustrated at the lack of places to play, Alexander used to enjoy busking with his dad for performance experience. They played many times at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

Alexander achieved his grade 8 jazz saxophone at the age of 10, Diploma at 11 (DipLCM),^[5] Associate Diploma at 13 (ALCM) and Licentiate Diploma (LLCM) at 14. He also passed his grade 8 jazz piano with a distinction at the age of 13 just before he was awarded a place to attend Chethams School of Music, where he still currently attends today. Here, he studies with Iain Dixon, Les Chisnall, Steve Berry & Richard Iles. Alexander has been awarded a place to study jazz at the Royal Academy of Music in London, starting in September 2015.

Alexander played as a young child with many high profile names including Snake Davis^[6] who mentored him many times and Stan Tracey, footage of which is all available on YouTube.

He has played with many great artists through the National Youth Jazz Collective, including a gig at the Houses of Parliament with Dave Holland^[7] and also through Chetham's (including Jean Toussaint). Alexander is a member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra,^[8] travelling down to rehearse in London as often as he can. He is also a member of Greater Manchester Jazz Orchestra and has appeared with them at the Manchester Jazz Festival,^[9] Wigan International Jazz Festival and at the Royal Albert Hall.^[10]

Recently, Alexander has worked with disco legend Nile Rodgers and drum and bass producers Rudimental at RAK Studios in London on a remix of 'Le Freak' that was released in October 2014.^[11] He's also recently performed live with Newton Faulkner, writing an exclusive arrangement of his hit song 'Indecisive'. He was one of three British musicians selected to attend the Brubeck Institute Summer Jazz Colony, which took place at University of the Pacific, Lake Tahoe in August 2014.^[12] He is a member of jazz quintet The Jam Experiment, which won the 2014 Jazz North Introduces scheme, and have played at various jazz festivals and venues including Southport Jazz Festival (link to review), Lancaster Jazz Festival & Wakefield Jazz Club with Liane Carroll. Alexander was featured on the first-ever BBC Music Awards, broadcast on BBC One and BBC Radio One in December 2014.

In 2014, Alexander became endorsed by Yanagisawa saxophones.^[13] He plays a 991B curved soprano, alto and tenor.

As well as performing, Alexander is passionate about electronic music production and currently releases electronic music under the alias 'Boney'. He uses the software Logic Pro. He is receiving requests from highly respected international artists to remix their material and produce their records. He has had remixes released on Spinnin' Records^[14] and Freemaison Records,^[15] the record label of DJ's The Freemasons. He also releases bootleg remixes available for free download on his social media.

External links

• Official website

References