Alex Sharp Cole- Artist Page

About

"I want to unite the 'worlds' of music and art..to me this requires thinking outside the box of genres, traditions.. and thinking of music *as* art."

Story

Alex Sharp Cole pushes boundaries and conventions combining musical performance with different art forms, using himself and actors in his music, films, live theatre and performance art.

In his academic work, Alex Sharp Cole has been developing methods of "teaching creativity," exploring this possibility... as a guide and mentor for others in finding the source of their own, artistic voice. He has an masters in music from the University of Göteborg and he has taught at the California Institute of the Arts where he developed his own course.

He founded Sounds On Purpose, a non-profit arts organisation in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the record label, "Personal Recordings of Sweden"which provides singer-songwriters and sound artists with creative production and mastering services.

He is an independent filmmaker and received his bachelors degree in art with an emphasis on filmmaking at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

He is an art activist with the belief that music and art can make the world a better place; he was put in charge of creating a summer music program at a refugee center (for teenagers) in Sweden in 2016, and earlier he has been a part of public projects elsewhere, including working with at-risk youth in Los Angeles to create their own play which debut at the Red Cat Theatre in west Hollywood.

He has three albums of music and sound art to his name, numerous singles and a catalogue of unreleased material from popular music to original compositions he has written for classical musicians. He studied piano growing up in the Suzuki method which emphasises playing by ear and memorisation. He is a multi-instrumentalist and also plays guitar but considers his voice his main instrument.

He has been a singer in several rock bands, most recently The Electric in Gothenburg, Sweden, and he continues performing as a singer-songwriter in addition to his solo art performances which have garnered a reputation for uniqueness and for being able to pull in new audiences, outside the more usual culture audience.

His work has been featured in the periodical, Boulder Weekly, for his sound art installation and recorded album which debut in San Francisco. At the California Institute of the Arts he received training and worked with sound design for alternative productions of Shakespere, and wrote his own experimental theatre pieces which were well-received.

He has composed film scores and done sound design for film work (see IMDB page fore film credits) and studied acting from an early age. He is known for performing in his own work. He is known for his rapport with actors.

He has been asked by various institutions to give presentations to groups of teachers about alternative methods of teaching music improvisation. The ability to improvise musically makes it possible for even musicians from very different cultural and musical backgrounds to play music together. Increasingly, the value of this has been realised.