MUSICIAN // COMPOSER // EDUCATOR
Alex Chadsey has distinguished himself in a wide variety of contexts both as a versatile performer and as a passionate educator. He has performed throughout the U.S. as well as in Mexico, Europe and South America. In 2012 Alex played on the Grammy award-winning album imaginaries (Smithsonian Folkways) by the Los Angeles-based rock band Quetzal.
Alex went on to form his own group Duende Libre whose 2017 debut album distills years of performing, apprenticing with master musicians, and crafting originals that explore Latin elements in new contexts. The group released their second album (Drift) the following year which in turn garnered a prestigious Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award for Northwest Jazz Recording of the Year. The group's third album, The Dance She Spoke, was released in July of 2020 and features original interpretations of traditional music from West Africa.
In addition to his achievements as a performer, Alex has been the recipient of multiple grants and awards from the City of Seattle to support collaborations with local, national & international artists, including Sounds Beyond Barriers, a collective songwriting project with youth in 2015 at the King County Juvenile Detention Center in Seattle. Alex is currently an adjunct Professor of Music at Digipen Institute for Technology and holds a Graduate Teaching position at the University of Washington where he will graduate with a Masters in Music in Jazz & Improvised Music in June 2020.
Keyboard player Alex Chadsey was fluent in jazz and classical forms. He’d walked the usual, rigorous path of a conservatory-style music education. Then he wound up in Seattle, University of Michigan music degree in hand, not sure of what to do. The answer: Play in salsa bands, perfect his montuno, and learn how music creates community.
Chadsey’s creative output changed dramatically, coming together in 2016 as a trio project Duende Libre. The following year the group released their debut album, which distills years of performing, apprenticing with master musicians, and crafting originals that explore Latin elements in new contexts. The results are savvy and grooving, reflecting the Seattle scenes Chadsey inhabits and loves, where Uzbek bassists and Jamaican poets and border-crossing fandangos power musical visions.
