About Alex
In his performing years, Alex was highly decorated in the marching arts starting his career at Jersey Surf in 2018 and performing with The Cadets from 2019 to 2022 as a soloist. An alumni of James Madison University, Alex lead the Marching Royal Dukes as a drum major and tuba section leader. In the classroom, Alex earned his Bachelors in Computer Science and Independent Scholars while being a brother of Phi Mu Alpha, maintaining multiple music minors, and performing in several ensembles such as the JMU Chorale and JMU Brass Band.
After graduating, Alex immediately began teaching local marching bands and joined the brass team at Jersey Surf. He currently works at Accenture Federal Services as a senior software analyst specializing in machine learning and computer vision.
Why OpenMarch?
The marching arts, as an activity, constantly finds itself battling with budgets and fighting for its own existence. No one is getting rich from loving band, yet thousands of us still dedicate our lives to it.
There is no reason any band should be spending significant portions of their budget on software. No director should spend mountains of their free time fighting to write drill. Drill writing shouldn't be hard. It should be fun and accessible.
The money and time should stay there.
I wake up every day and spend hours of my free time in between my job and teaching with the hope that OpenMarch will make the marching arts world healthier. Everyone is money strapped, but the activity is alive and well from the passion of the performers and educators. If a student wants to explore their passion for drill writing, or a band director wants to write drill for their own band, there should be an accessible tool to do so.
I have been overjoyed with how quick people have stepped up to help get this mission accomplished. The community feedback has already been astounding and filled with support.
