J. Alex. Young is a Cree-Métis Composer from Northern Ontario and a University of Calgary Ph.D. Candidate specializing in Composition. He holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) from Carleton University and a Masters in Composition from the University of Ottawa. He has operated as an Indigenous student advisor for the University of Calgary Equity Diversity Inclusion and Decolonization Committee and is currently a dedicated member of the Canadian Music Centre’s Accountability for Change and Indigenous Advisory Councils. In 2019 he was awarded the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship for his research on Indigenous culture which encompasses aspects of Cree storytelling, ceremony and song as inspiration for new creative works. His most recent work titled šâkohtâw (shâ-kôhê-tâ-hwah) was premiered February 27, 2022, by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra as an Indigenous composer commissioned to create a new work for Tom Jackson’s digital series The Bear and the Wild Rose. Currently he is undertaking two commissions for the Calgary Wind Symphony and Tim Brady’s Instruments of Happiness ensemble. Starting in September 2022 he has joined the School of Music at Brandon University as Assistant Professor of Composition and Indigenous Music Perspectives. J. Alex Young feels to reflect a musical concord between his Indigenous Cree and Western heritage that a unity of self, community, land and spirit must be maintained. His compositions are combinatory sonic and narrative explorations of his personal connection to home, family, story and spirituality.