Alex Robinson

Alex Robinson is a vocalist, pianist, composer, and arranger based in Southern California. A versatile musician, she has performed in a variety of settings from solo and duo work to big bands and orchestras. Her warm, smooth timbre, sharp lyricism, and playful improvisational style captivate audiences from her first note. She brings a refreshing modern twist to jazz standards and performs a broad range of styles with jazz-influenced musicality.

Her debut album I Really Oughta Tell You balances elegance, wit, and emotional depth while showcasing her gift for storytelling through song. Featuring a collection of  beloved and lesser-known jazz standards - plus a cheeky new original and a classic Joni Mitchell song - the album showcases the many dimensions of her artistry, from soft and romantic to vibrant and intense. In its first three weeks of radio play, I Really Oughta Tell You made the Most Added, Increased Airplay, and Chartbound lists on JazzWeek.

Alex performs around the Greater Los Angeles area with her own project, as a guest artist, and as a choral artist with Tonality and Choral Arts Initiative. She has been featured at the Festival of Arts (Laguna Beach, CA), Stanford Jazz Festival (Stanford, CA), and Jazz Roots at the Adrienne Arsht Center (Miami, FL). Musicians she has shared the stage with include Peter Eldridge, Darmon Meader, Becca Stevens, Donny McCaslin, and Tony Guerrero.

In 2022, Alex performed for Disney Cruise Line as part of the inaugural cast of the Disney Wish. As the ship's entertainer pianist, she curated solo sets for Nightingale's piano bar as well as trio/quartet sets with her bandmates in a variety of genres. She was a featured performer in two of the ship's most exciting shows, Victrophonics and Pirate's Rockin' Parlay Party, which included musicians playing live to fireworks for the first time in DCL history.

Off the stage, Alex's credits as a session vocalist include background vocals for Carole King, and choral singing on composer Carla Patullo's GRAMMY award-winning albums So She Howls and Nomadica. Her work as an arranger has been featured at the New York Voices' vocal jazz camp as well as the Jazz Education Network Independent Arrangers' Reading Session curated by Kerry Marsh. 

In addition to performing and writing, Alex is a sought-after music educator, clinician, and adjudicator. She is currently teaches private lessons, voice classes, and directs vocal jazz ensembles at Mt. San Antonio College and Chapman University. Her students have won Downbeat student music awards for composition and outstanding jazz vocal soloist. As someone who has dealt with anxiety and perfectionism in her own musical journey, Alex is a firm believer that you don’t need to sacrifice curiosity and joy in order to become a skilled musician. Her goal is to help her students become well-rounded in their areas of interest while maintaining their creative spark. 

Alex is a two-time graduate of the University of Miami, where she studied with Dr. Kate Reid and sang in the multiple Downbeat award-winning vocal group Extensions for eight consecutive semesters. In 2019, she spent a week performing original music in Zagreb, Croatia as one of two students from the Frost School of Music selected to participate in the International Association of Schools of Jazz conference. She then taught private lessons, developed courses, and directed Jazz Vocal II while working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.