November’s guest editor for The Sampler is musician, teacher and writer Alex Burns. Below she introduces herself and her contributions for this month.

My name is Alex Burns, and I work as a freelance musician, teacher, arts marketing professional and writer. I am currently based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, however I originally hail from Luton. I am a recent graduate of The University of Sheffield, where I spent three years studying for a BMus in Music and then for an MA in Musicology. A massive thank you to Sound and Music for asking me to be the guest editor of The Sampler for the month of November!

A lot of my work stems from my award-winning classical music blog https://classicalexburns.com, which was founded in 2015 as a side project to my studies at university. My aim is to make classical music accessible for all, through blogs that combine facts, opinion, musical thought and analysis to create thought-provoking reading for anybody with an interest in classical music. I have a keen interest in new music, and so for one of my contributions to The Sampler, I have conducted an interview with Sheffield’s finest contemporary composer collective – Platform 4.

During my time guest editor of The Sampler, I would like to shed light on some of the forefront contemporary classical music composers. My event picks and playlist also reflect this theme, and will hopefully offer a flavour of what my life is like as a freelance musician.

Alex’s top 5 new works of 2018

November event recommendations

Interview with Platform 4

November playlist