About Philip Alexander ...
... and Sing, Play, Grow!
Sing, Play, Grow! is the web site for Philip Alexander, a professional children's musician and storyteller, based in the Boston area. Philip performs family concerts all over New England, leads weekly parent/child music classes, offers regular school enrichment programs, and conducts teacher training workshops. His songs and stories delight children and parents alike. Everywhere he performs kids sing, clap, laugh, and dance merrily! Philip plays guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, bamboo flute, drums, ocarina, boomwhackers, digiridoo, car muffler… (okay, not the muffler, but everything else!) His playlist features fresh, zany originals complimented by a choice blend of traditional American music, and spiced up with some delightful songs and chants from around the world. He's even got a few tunes from the moon!
Philip began his musical journey (and life!) in Ithaca, New York. His first instrument was the clarinet which he played in the school band. From there he graduated to electric guitar and a high school rock band which wudda, cudda, shudda, almost made it big. Well... not really, but it certainly was fun while it lasted! Moving to Oregon and later to Hawaii, he campaigned with environmental groups to save old growth forests, planted over 100,000 Douglas Fir saplings as a reforestation engineer (ie.tree planter), harvested many a vegetable down on the local organic farm, and developed a serious love of boogie boarding. Returning east, he moved to Boston to study music at Berklee College of Music. While he still enjoys post-bop jazz and the dissonance of 20th century composers (Bartok anyone?), he now enjoys most of all singing and playing guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, and other eclectic instruments while rocking out with family, friends, and young people throughout the Greater Boston area.
Philip performs both solo and with his band, and often with his own family band, where his daughter Sophia continues to steal the show and shows no signs of ever giving it back! He has recorded two CD's of children's music, "Winter Playing" and "Pigs Dance & Fairies Sing" and has written the music for a children's musical entitled "The Comic Book Kid", produced and performed by Artbarn Community Theater in Brookline, Massachusetts. In 2009 Philip was awarded the Karen Yahara Service Award by Birthday Wishes of Newton, MA for volunteering monthly performances at birthday parties for children living in homeless shelters. He is grateful that his music could brighten the day for these wonderful children, and hopes it will brighten your day, too.