Share Alexander Harris

Share Alexander Harris

Please enjoy!

Thanks for listening!

Thanks for listening.

I have three shows in November as part of Beacon Bonfire. I’ve played the festival twice before and it’s a very special event.

400+ performers in 20+ venues, located in the “coolest small city in the USA.” Gather around the fire! Nov 5 - 9, 2025

BEACON BONFIRE TICKETS

Vinny DePonto: Mind Reader

Back together with my brother from another mother as he performs his famous mind experiments. I’ll be live-scoring the whole thing and ANYTHING can happen. It all depends on what’s on your mind.

Saturday, November 8th

8:00PM - 9:30PM

@ St. Rita’s Music Room

Right after that show, I’m doing a solo show in the same venue. Expect sax, synths, electronics, and other sonic surprises.

Alexander Harris: Solo Show

Saturday, November 8th

10:00PM - 11:00PM

@ St. Rita’s Music Room

A short clip from the studio while working on my solo set. More experiments here

The following afternoon I’ll be playing a set of improvised music with Bob Frye. Expect sax, synths, piano, singing bowls, gongs, and electronics.

Frye & Harris

Sunday, November 9th

3PM - 4PM

@ Howland Cultural Center

TICKETS

Hope to see you there

As summer wraps up and the kids are back at school, I’ve been back in my Harlem studio working on new music. Above is a track I recorded last night — the full version of a shorter idea I posted to my Music Journal on SoundCloud. It’s built on a repeating figure layered with three sounds from my NuRAD electric wind instrument: a lead synth, synth brass, and a flute sample, all processed through FX pedals, tape delay, granular delays, and reverb.

Much of the past couple of months (apart from a couple of weeks spent in Maine with friends) I’ve spent experimenting in the barn, just north of NYC. I’ve rearranged the space to feel more like a performance venue and added a PA system. I’m planning to host small invitation-only shows (with special guests) soon — let me know if you’d like to be among the first to attend.

I’ve also been posting regularly to YouTube in a Music Journal format — short experiments similar to what I’ve been sharing privately with friends for years.

Finally, I’m excited to be back at Beacon Bonfire this November, with three performances in different contexts. More details in the next newsletter.

Keep the music playing,

Alex

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In case you didn’t mark it in your calendars, today is the day you can buy my latest album.

It would mean the world to me if you could pop over to Bandcamp and buy it. Sure, it’ll be available on all the big music services at some point but the best way to support artists directly is through purchasing their music on a site like Bandcamp. You can stream through the app or even download the files for yourself.

Thanks everyone!

My music plays throughout the live show, underscoring Vinny’s performance and introducing new scenes. This album includes the tracks in their entirety, fully remixed and mastered for this release, and includes two additional tracks featuring the voice of Vinny DePonto AND a bonus track - a cover of the Peggy Lee classic Where or When featuring the wondrous Hailey Tuck to play us out.

To create the music for the show I used a combination of acoustic and electric instruments including synthesizers, pianos, saxophone, effects pedals, cassette players and worked closely with Vinny to create a sound world we both thought complemented the show.

Special thanks to the incomparable Adam Skinner for mastering the album and providing invaluable advice throughout the production process.

The album will be available exclusively on Bandcamp to start with but will be available to stream on all the major streaming platforms at some point in the future.

As always, Bandcamp is the best platform to support musicians, and enables us to keep making original music like this.

Mindplay (Original Music by Alexander Harris)

Co-Produced by Vinny DePonto

Pre Order Now

I’ve found that music is the only thing keeping me sane in this crazy world. I hope that you can turn off the world for 35 minutes and let this album calm your mind.

Until next time, sending all my love to those of you who continue to support me.

Get Tickets Here

Regular readers may remember I’ve been improvising live music for Vinny’s one-off shows for the last couple of years, so I already had an idea of the musical palette I’d use in terms of instrumentation, but the actual musical material for the show was scored from scratch taking inspiration from the show’s broad themes - the mind, memory, thoughts and dreams, and the use of cassette tapes. I played around with degrading and warping sounds to reflect these themes.

Unlike a traditional musical or Broadway show Mindplay is not timed perfectly to its score. There is a lot of audience interaction and participation, so scenes vary in length, and I needed to write music that could be shortened or extended accordingly while still seemingly totally natural and organic to the production.

Here is an excerpt of a track from Mindplay.

While most of the music for the show was composed one part at a time and layered, this track was improvised and recorded live in one take with no overdubs.

Nerd alert: I programmed my NuRAD (the electric wind instrument) to harmonize the melody notes as I play them. All the notes and expression MIDI data is being sent wirelessly to the rig behind me to control a couple of synthesizers (the lead and string sounds). These sounds have different attack and sustain times are being processed by a couple of pedals to add some tonal modulation and reverb, as well as to create the impression of a large ensemble rather than one player.

I’m going to keep experimenting with these techniques as I look forward to expanding my solo show. So watch this space.

On November 6th, after deleting my Apple News app, I started working on my next album. I’ll have more to share in a future newsletter, but I’m excited by the progress so far. In the meantime you can listen to the four albums I released in 2024 here.

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Huge thanks to all those who’ve supported this project, and to the wonderful folks mentioned in the credits below - I couldn’t have done this without you. I have some exciting new things I’m working on, which I’ll let you know about soon, and I’ll be taking a break from the monthly releases until further notice. If you haven’t already purchased any of these albums, you can buy the entire four album project by clicking the link below and then “Buy Digital Discography” for a 25% discount vs buying individual albums. This album will roll out on all the streaming platforms over the next few days/weeks but as always, the best way to support me is using the Bandcamp link below.

BUY HERE

NuRAD, Novation Peak, Electronics and Production by Alexander Harris

Mastering by Adam Skinner

Artwork by Arthur Banach

Cover Design by Vinny Deponto

©Alexander Harris 2024

Please enjoy what’s left of the summer.

Please share this with anyone you think will be interested. I appreciate you all!

Until next time…

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It’s available on Bandcamp now and will roll out over the streaming services over the next few days (and in some cases weeks). The best way to support my work is to use this link to buy the album. Thanks in advance for listening!

Buy Album

LIVE SHOW THIS SATURDAY IN NEW YORK.

This Saturday I’m doing a show with Bob Frye at Tompkins Corner Cultural Center. We’re both really excited to play in this legendary local venue, and we’re pulling out all the stops. Please join us for what I hope will be a wonderful night of musical collaboration. There will be piano, synthesizers, saxophone, drum machines, and Bob’s collection of Tibetan singing bowls and gongs. We’ll be recording and filming the show and will likely make that available in the coming weeks, but we heartily recommend joining us for the live show if you can.

Buy Tickets

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I want to thank those of you who’ve supported my most recent music releases, and for all your messages of encouragement. It really means a lot - putting this stuff out into the world is a huge thing for me

The next album will be released on August 1st and you will all be notified in this newsletter. It will be on my Bandcamp first and you will have to wait a few days for the other streaming services to catch up. Bandcamp is also the best way to support me and my music. I keep most of the money from sales compared to the relatively low royalties from the likes of Apple Music or Spotify.

My next live show is Frye & Harris at Tompkins Corners Cultural Center in Putnam Valley, NY at 7:30pm. I hope to see you there.

Get tickets HERE

Last week I performed at a new and exciting venue. It’s a small invite-only room and it’s a unique space. I can’t say much more than that, but I will be sure to let you all know when tickets for future shows become available.

Here is a clip of me doing some knee stretches and playing my NuRad:

I’ll leave you with a photo from last night from my first voyage in some time with the Moonlight Kayakers (who I pay tribute to here). We were all feeling somewhat relieved after a certain someone finally decided to bow out, and it felt like some of our collective anxiety lifted. Hoping for brighter days ahead.

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