Alex Sopp creates flowering gardens of song and clouds of harmonious flute sound, rendering dreams and reimagining portraits, channeling a state of wonder and enchantment. As a flutist, she is renowned for her “exquisite” and “beautifully nuanced” playing (NY Times). She is a founding member of yMusic, The Knights, NOW Ensemble, and the Berlin-based Between Worlds Ensemble. Her debut album of original songs, “The Hem & The Haw” will be released in 2024.
From her home in Brooklyn, she has traveled the world making music. As an orchestral musician she has played principal flute in the New York Philharmonic (also as soloist) and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on tour, as a guest with the Mariiinsky Theatre and Bremen Camerata, and with her legendary chamber orchestra The Knights at venues such as the Ojai Festival, Suntory Hall, and the Lucerne Festival.
As a songwriter, flutist and singer, she has performed with yMusic at arenas and concert venues around the world and on Saturday Night Live in support of their album with Paul Simon, performing iconic harmonic vocal lines and whistle solos, as well as playing flute in original arrangements from Simon’s storied catalog developed in rehearsal. yMusic redefines the mixed chamber ensemble on the classical concert stage as a creative, compositional voice in its own right, having premiered new work by the ensemble itself and a major commission from Andrew Norman in one concert at Carnegie Hall, while creating an outpouring of collaboratively created arrangements with major artists such as John Legend, Ben Folds, and Anohni.
Alex’s work takes her across many borders musically, performing in the South African artist William Kentridge’s “The Head and the Load”, working with flamenco musicians and the Georgian male chorus, The Rustavi Ensemble, with the Between Worlds Ensemble at the Pierre Boulez Saal and Elbphilharmonie, and recording flutes in the studio and at home for a huge range of popular styles including Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens, The Dirty Projectors, St. Vincent, and The National, as well as many film scores for Philip Glass.
As flute soloist, she has premiered works by Nico Muhly, performed the world premiere of Judd Greenstein’s flute concerto at the Montreal Bach Festival, and will premiere a new Rhapsody for flute and orchestra by Allison Loggins-Hull commissioned for her and The Knights at Carnegie Hall in 2024. Equally in demand for her singing, she has recently given concerto performances playing flute and singing in music by Gabriel Kahane with the Oregon and Cincinnati Symphonies (alongside her longtime friend and Juilliard classmate Nathalie Joachim) as well as a featured singing role in Chris Thile’s recent song cycle premiered by The Knights at the Tanglewood Festival.
She is an advocate for creative risk-taking and multi-disciplinary freedom for artists. This led her to be the first ever recipient of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary residency as Artist in Residence at Duke University. Her unique artwork, ranging from meticulously detailed pen drawings to evocative paintings has been used by a wide array of artists and brands to bring their projects to visual life: from musicians such Joshua Bell to companies like Primis Imports and cutting edge organizations like Castle of Our Skins.