Meet Alex Hoskyns

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alex Hoskyns a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Alex with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

A lot of people know me as the girl who always has a crazy schedule and says yes to some of the most out-of-the-box jobs. While balance is important, I strongly believe that every small opportunity leads to the next, and some of them open doors that you would never expect. For instance, joining an A Cappella club at my college, which eventually turned into traveling for gigs around the country, and collaborating with some amazingly talented artists. Or signing up for an opera-inspired contemporary music show in Spain, the video from which helped me perform at my school’s arena commencement concert, and get into a Masters program. I always try to remember that no opportunity is beneath me, and that chances taken are lessons earned. All the best opportunities I’ve had to perform have been auditions I almost said no to, and I thank god every day that I didn’t. Just because someone else doesn’t understand it or think it’s worth their time does not mean it isn’t worth yours. And when I get overwhelmed with the workload, I try to remember how grateful I am to be overwhelmed by opportunities to do what I love, and to push through the mental blocks.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a vocalist and composer from Boston Massachusetts. I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston for an undergrad in Production and arranging, concentrating on music in film and TV. However through this process I realized how much I really loved and missed performing, and I decided to pivot and start my journey to be a performing artist. So I graduated my undergrad a year early, so I could get my Masters in Contemporary vocal performance and recording at Berklee’s Valencia campus.
I am deeply inspired by the music of Tower of Power, Ray Charles, Susan Tedeschi, taking inspiration from soul, blues and jazz, with a love of melancholic lyricsm and singing in my lower range. Valencia is a really amazing place to be a performer, as there is such a vibrant live music scene as well as an eagerness to go experience live concerts. It’s been less than 2 months and I already feel I have been able to start diving into perform at these venues and finding a space for my original music here. I plan on releasing my first full length album here, reflecting themes of mundanaity, heartbreak, and nostalgia.
However along side this, I am using my masters to explore creative directing, working on a collaborative music video project collaborating with other female artists in my program. Getting to study under Magdalini Giannikou at the Palau de Les Arts, and many other amazing professors, I’m starting to understand what it takes to build a cohesive world around a project.
Overall, this year for me is about becoming a well rounded creative, trying to bring my creative universe to life, both sonically and visually, while connecting with some of the most talented creatives from around the globe. I couldn’t be more grateful and excited for whats to come.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Tenacity, Passion, and Gratitude

Tenacity is what I’m building my career on. Whenever someone tells me I can’t do something, or shouldn’t, I take that as a challenge and do it anyway. Whether that makes me crazy I don’t know, but I think we all have to be a little be crazy to make it in this industry.

Passion is also something I value in those around me. In this career its so easy to loose sight of our love of creating, and turn everything into a statistic or a spreadsheet. The music industry is difficult enough, so if you are loosing passion, whats the point? I try to follow the opportunities that make me excited, and find passion in trying new things.

I think gratitude is the best combatant of anxiety. For every audition, I original thought of it as a test, and I had terrible test anxiety in high school so that wasn’t ideal. Eventually I taught myself to frame it as an opportunity to share my passion for performing. I feel so grateful every day that I have the support and access to resources to start building the life I’ve always dreamed, and once I really put that gratitude in the center of everything, hard work and long hours became easier. At the end of the day if something goes wrong, I’m just a girl who makes silly sounds with my mouth, its not that deep.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

In high school, I was lucky enough to study under Chad Weirick, a very skilled arranger and pianist. I was the only student who signed up for that music theory class, but he was nice enough to continue the class just with me. Not only did he teach me the necessary skills to test out of half my harmony classes in college, but he introduced me to arranging and composing, something I would have never explored without his guidance. He even gave me scenes from a documentary he was working on, and would ask me to compose my own cue for the scene. I owe a great deal of the musician I am today to him.

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