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Latest News (Writing and Features here)
21 July 2025
Review: Ye Xian: A Story Untold at Southbank, 4*s
Opera Now, Gramophone
Composer Alex Ho invites us to remove our shoes, explaining the practice is customary in Chinese culture. As it is 27 degrees and I am wearing elderly trainers I decline this kind offer for the sake of my neighbours. Many others in Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room slip out of sandals; Ho – currently resident composer at Glyndebourne – smiles from the stage, wearing a Tang suit and grey socks. The juxtaposition of East and West – and the subsequent fusion and friction – is the theme behind Ye Xian: A Story Untold, Ho’s new oratorio-cum-opera.

21 July 2025
Review: Ye Xian: A Story Untold at Southbank
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN
Ho is co-director of the artist collective Tangram, whose imaginative multidisciplinary events focus on contemporary Chinese diaspora musicians and artists. His music is attracting a lot of attention: he is currently a featured composer at Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and a large-scale song cycle is being performed at Wigmore Hall on 24 July... Ho’s adaptation of the story is musically captivating and emotionally wide-ranging, taking risks by using humour, personal stories, and extended instrumental techniques..

16 July 2025
Behind the Baggage: what opera composers need to know
Opera Now, Gramophone
Working as an opera composer is a journey of high highs and low lows. Since making my first stage work in 2019, I have felt intense frustration, exhaustion, sadness and anger at various points during creative, technical and administrative processes. Yet I have also experienced incredible joy from making work with artists who have become dear friends. I am frequently in awe at seeing how different disciplines can come together as a whole greater than the sum of its parts...

31 March 2025
Ye Xian: A Story Untold announced at Southbank Centre
Purcell Room, ESEA Encounters
The Southbank Centre has announced the lineup for a brand new cultural series showcasing East and Southeast Asia and the diaspora - ESEA Encounters. Taking place from Thursday 17 - Sunday 20 July, ESEA Encounters will showcase a selection of some of the most exciting contemporary art and culture of East and Southeast Asia in an incredible lineup of performances, music, poetry, literature and art alongside a pop-up market.

26 February 2025
New EP release announced for 2026
NMC Recordings, Jerwood Foundation
We are delighted to announce the Jerwood Foundation has awarded NMC Recordings with a grant of £25,000 to support a new digital only series that will focus on talented composers. Four composers, Bushra El-Turk, Ben Nobuto, Yshani Perinpanayagam and Alex Ho will be given tailored support to release digital EPs as Jerwood Series.

14 December 2024
BBC Broadcast of piano solo Cyborg Études
BBC Radio 3, New Music Show
Tom Service presents the final instalment of music from this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Keyboard player Zubin Kanga performs the world premiere of Alex Ho's Cyborg Etudes...
