The world premiere of Alex Paxton's World Builder, Creature with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under Alan Gilbert at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg's Visions Festival 2025 was received with great enthusiasm by the audience and the press. As this year's portrait composer, Alex received an extraordinary amount of media attention, including TV features on NDR-Kulturjournal and Hamburg Journal, and radio features on Deutschlandfunk, NDR Kultur, and RBB, reaching an audience of approximately 15 million. Here is a selection of press reviews as well as an artistic concert film featuring the world premiere performance of World Builder, Creature intertwined with hand-painted animations and the night-time ambience of Elbphilharmonie Hamburg’s foyer.

Concert Film: World Builder, Creature

Fascinating soundscapes somewhere between vibrant gaming-inspired music and novel orchestral textures – always with the courage to be melodic. Alex Paxton's latest composition, World Builder, Creature, has caused an international sensation with its playful and by no means cerebral soundscapes. New music that revolves around fun. Written for the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra as part of the Claussen Simon Composition Prize, the twenty-minute piece can now be experienced in a unique concert film featuring artist Weronika Marianna. Drawing inspiration from the sonic landscape of Alex' piece, she has created a series of vibrant, looping animations. Projected onto the iconic architecture of the Elbphilharmonie, these visuals merge with concert footage from the festival’s opening night, forming a captivating multimedia experience.

Find out more at elbphilharmonie.de

Reviews

"High string harmonics, celesta, harp and gentle percussion – this is a world of sky blue and snow white, sprinkled throughout with crystalline, sun gold. British composer Alex Paxton entices us into the winter holidays with his new piece “World Builder, Creature”, which Alan Gilbert premieres with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg."

"Alex Paxton’s “World Builder, Creature” delivered unheard sounds, exciting constellations, and exhilarating distortions of time and space in the first part of the “Visions” biennale opening concert. The festival’s first world premiere was performed in the Elbphilharmonie’s Great Hall, whose acoustics seemed made for just this event. The vital momentum that Paxton seeks to convey in his music was very clear and emotionally moving."

"Paxton’s “World Builder, Creature,” awarded the 2024 Claussen Simon Composition Prize, was something witty, relaxed in its balance on the fine line between playful and goofy. Pleasantly and delicately crafted, the sounds bubbled away over one another, and Paxton created a panorama with casual, anything-goes ambiguity. Wherever you listened, something would bubble or brew – a puzzle whose pieces need not necessarily be put together. The main thing was how much was going on at once, and how colourful everything was. For Gilbert and his orchestra, it was a low-threshold, avant-garde playground in which to run riot."

Alex Paxton: Composer portrait by Elbphilharmonie

Score of World Builder, Creature