Alex Chapman

An experienced composer and accessibility consultant for music and live events, Alex Chapman (he/they) has composed for ensembles including Opera North, BBC Philharmonic, and Aberdeen Jazz Festival. He has an extensive portfolio of accessibility work throughout the UK, including institutions, orchestral organisations, and youth music charities. Additionally, Alex has extensive knowledge and experience in supporting neurodivergent youth pursuing music either as a regular activity or prospective career. 

Alex regularly engages in speaking on belonging, equality, diversity, and inclusion matters to a wide variety of audiences. In addition, he also engages in collaborative work with other neurodivergent musicians, educators, and researchers on various projects including neurodivergent musicians’ experiences in education and the workplace, and practice-based projects on AuDHD traits and musical practice. 

• Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion 
• Neurodiversity in societal and musical contexts
• Sensory processing experiences
• Environmental psychology
• Accessibility and reasonable adjustments in education, the workplace, and wider society

Alex’s doctoral research focuses on the exploration of neurodivergent musicians’ atypical auditory processing experiences, motivations and engagement, and reasonable adjustments in live music settings. This project is supported via a Collaborative Doctoral Award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, partnering with Drake Music Scotland. Alex is supervised by Professor Pamela Heaton, Professor Jane Ginsborg, and Peter Sparkes. In addition to this, Alex is also exploring neurodivergent audiences’ experiences of attending live music venues. Although this is also supported through the AHRC, this will not be documented in the thesis. 

Alex is currently engaging in collaborative research with neurodivergent researchers, advisors, and participants around the UK, specialising in neurodivergent musicians’ experiences through education to the working profession using participatory approaches. This has currently led to various journal submissions with more collaborative work anticipated to happen in the near future. 

Alex is collaborating on a practice-based project with Dr Pete Furniss (University of Manchester) on embodiment of AuDHD traits through composer-performer collaboration. This study is a collaborative autoethnographic project about our experiences of neurodivergent traits through creation and collaboration in the context of musical practice.

Alex is collaborating with Pamela Heaton and the Junior department at the Royal Northern College of Music on a project exploring the relationship between neurodivergent students’ and neurotypical tutors’ communication styles. The results of this will be communicated to the Head of Junior Programmes and will be used to improve students’ experiences of Saturday music school.

Outside of music, Alex is engaging in an autobiographical case study on their neurodivergent traits through the process of medical transition. This will provide positionality to projects such as their thesis. It is hoped that this will be of support to not only members of the community going through similar processes, but also medical professionals if more research is conducted in the future.