Alex Vaughan
composer
BIOGRAPHY
Alex James Vaughan is an Australian composer, data scientist, music theorist and educator. He has taught for many years at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar, also working as an AI researcher and developer.
His compositions have been performed all over the world, garnering international recognition through awards such as the Lucerne Festival Roche Young Commissions, the Casa Baldi Rome Residency, the Protonwerk composition competition and the Baldreit Scholarship among many more.
Alex is also the founder of Swansonic, a music education and AI platform dedicated to inspiring musical creativity and learning. He's also the presenter of the music theory YouTube channel Score Circuit, where he explores random in-depth composition and music theoretical concepts.
Among his teachers and mentors have been the music theorist Jörn Arnecke, jazz trombonist Hansjörg Fink, Austrian composer Gerd Kühr and the celebrated German composer and educator Wolfgang Rihm.
AI Development and Criticism
Alex has over 15 years of experience in software development, also active as an AI researcher. He has developed cutting edge music algorithms and AI systems, spending significant time exploring the potential of new software for music education.
However, Alex has been highly critical of the modern AI movement speaking out publicly on the severe negative impacts on the music industry, remarking that “Artificial intelligence causes existential anxiety in many composers… Our creativity can be counterfeited much more easily than we thought. If the artistic process can be automated, art and music will cease to have any value.” *
“Unlike earlier disruptive technologies such as photography or recorded music, generative AI penetrates directly into the cognitive domain. Rather than merely challenging the medium of artistic expression, it questions the very essence of creative thinking. AI competes with artists not only in execution, but in the realm of ideas.” *
He is of the opinion that it should be illegal to feed AI systems any form of copyright data without consent and that AI music should be restricted to education-based contexts and discouraged in creative processes. “Using AI in the artistic process leads to the creation of worse and increasingly bland music. This is my conclusion based on everything I've seen in this industry so far.” *
As a trombonist
Alex was raised as a jazz trombonist. From the age of 8 he started trombone tuition followed several years later by lessons in jazz and music theory at the 'Music Life - School of Performing Arts', Rouse Hill, Sydney under the direction of Rory Thomas (OAM). His teenage years were dominated by jazz and were spent playing in 3-4 jazz combos and big bands a week. Alex then later studied jazz trombone at the HfM Weimar with the trombonist Hansjörg Fink.
Although he gradually became more and more involved as a composer and entrepreneur, he still occassionally performs as both a jazz and contemporary trombonist and can be heard on many recordings of his own music. Below are some examples of his playing:
... with trombone ensemble
... with bigband
'Song of Praise' for trombone solo
'Coram Deo' for solo trombone
