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Diogo Alexandre

About Me

My Jazz Story

Diogo Filipe Quintino Alexandre is a Portuguese drummer born in 1998. He is especially known for his distinct, bold drumming style, whose voice rarely goes unnoticed, regardless of the musical context, perhaps a reflection of his need to outdo himself and to push music and improvisation forward to ever higher levels. "Diogo Alexandre Quartet was the best concert of 2019s Festa do Jazz. Very young, Alexandre is already a unique drummer, both in the dramaticism that he is able to communicate, and his gesturality. (...) As well as a composer to watch out for." Leonel Santos - in JazzLogical on the 2019 Festa do Jazz, Portugal. He started his studies at classical percussion and at 13 his mother gave him his first drum set. At 14 he moved away from home to study jazz at a jazz school in Coimbra. From this point onwards, his life completely changed, having since not ceased from following his goals and his passion for music. After moving to Lisbon to study jazz at university in 2016, he began to perform on a regular basis, gaining valuable musical and life experience. By the age of 20, he had already performed alongside artists such as Ohad Talmor, João Barradas, André Fernandes, Ben van Gelder, José Soares, João Mortágua, Jeffery Davis, João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Carlos Barretto, Damien Cabaud, Javier Subatin, Eduardo Cardinho, Fabrizio Cassol (conductor),Frederico Heliodoro amongst others. He finished his Jazz Bachelor with maximum grade (20 out of 20) and has won various national music prizes, including “Revelation Musician of the year” 2020 RTP/Festa do Jazz, “Best Performer” (2015 and 2017) and “Best Ensemble” (2015) at the "Festa do Jazz" in Lisbon plus “Prémio Jovens Músicos” 2019 RTP, Antena 2” (Young Musicians Competition 2019) wich is the one of the biggest Portuguese competitions for jazz and classical musicians up to 26 years old. He as recorded as sideman several albuns such as Javier Subatin “Autotelic” (2018) and “Variaciones” (2019), Desidério Lázaro “Homegrown” (2019), Gonçalo Sousa “Nova Construção” (2019), Zé Cruz “USSEGUNDU” (2019) and Samuel Gapp “Trio with Strings quartet” (2019, Bernardo Sassetti’s composition prize winner), Ricardo Pinheiro and Miguel Amado “LAB”(2020), Javier Subatin “Trance trio” (2020). Also, he has performed at several international Festivals such has Copenhagen Jazz, Cortona Jazz Fest (Italy), Sudtirol Jazz Fest (Italy) and Festival d’Aix en Provence (South France). He was invited for three consecutive times to perform as part of an intercultural ensemble led by Fabrizio Cassol with musicians from all around the Mediterranean Basin, that took place in Malta and France. He currently performs as sideman with artists such as Javier Subatin, Eduardo Cardinho, Samuel Gapp, Vasco Pimentel, Tomás Marques, and João Mortágua and is working to record his own projects, an Ensemble (septet) for drums, trumpet, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, double bass, piano and guitar plus his duo with Portuguese established saxophone player João Mortágua, which is based on improvisation mixing acoustics with electronics.