Corpus English student Alex Bird will have the opportunity to supercharge her musical career having been selected as a participant on the Centre for Music Performance’s Advanced Popular Performance Scheme, which fosters excellence in popular music at the University of Cambridge. As a vocal pathway member, Alex will receive regular one-to-one coaching from longstanding BRIT School tutor Anton Browne and vocal coach and singer-songwriter Rebecca Phillips, for whom Alex performed during the selection process for the Scheme.

Professional mentoring and support has long been offered to classical instrumentalists and singers at the University of Cambridge. APPS allows popular music-making students to access these provisions too, helping the most promising student acts to reach their full potential. 

Nicholas Danks, Director of Music at Corpus, comments: "I am thrilled to hear that Alex, through a highly competitive process, has been selected to be a participant on the CMS's Advanced Popular Performance Scheme. Anyone connected to Corpus music over the past two years could not have failed to notice Alex's prodigious talent and potential in this area of music performance. 

From being a choral scholar at Corpus in her first year to pursuing the vocal paths of her dreams in her second, it has been a pleasure to see Alex grow and develop as a musician. She has also been a core participant in and driving force behind the College's Music Society, the Bene't Club, working particularly hard to widen participation in the Society's activities and to broaden the range of genres featured in its performances, be it at Open Mic nights in the Pelican Bar or initiating hugely popular late evening Soul Nights in the College Chapel. At the same time, Alex has been a great advocate for the work of the Centre for Music Performance, demonstrating the success of the joined-up approach and harmonisation between musical activity at College level and at University level, which the Centre was set-up to facilitate."

You can hear Alex perform over the next few weeks. Tonight, Wednesday 20 November, she'll be singing in the Chapel for the Alternative Worship Service. As the theme for the Service is 'Peace', she'll be performing 'We got to have peace' by Curtis Mayfield.  

On Friday 22 November, she'll be singing at the JCR open mic on Friday. On Tuesday 26 November, she'll be in a Clairo tribute at Clare Cellars (tickets here), and on the 6 December at Selwyn's Snowball. 

Many congratulations to this very talented performer.