Described as "an original composer with new ideas and a command of complex symphonic writing" (BroadStreet Journal), New Zealander-American Dr. Alan Mackwell (b. 1998) is a two-time BMI Composer Award-winning young composer and performer based in Boulder, Colorado. In his work, Alan explores a blend of atmospheres inspired by his experiences in the Permian Basin, northern New Mexico, and Appalachian North Carolina using a spectral and bluegrass-infused musical language as well as the utilization of original field recordings.

Alan’s music has been played on three different continents, and several US states. His compositions have been played by high-achieving groups such as Ensemble Modern, The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Amorsima Trio, Hub New Music, Mantra Percussion, and Hypercube. He was the grand prize winner of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Inaugural Young Composers’ Competition in addition to being a two-time finalist for the Todd Corporation Young Composers’ Awards hosted by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Alan is the winner of the 2023 American Prize as well as two BMI Composer Awards, which he won in 2022 for his string trio Remains of a Permian Gas Station and again in 2025 for Rail Dynamics, a work for string trio and fixed media written for his residency at the TANK Center for the Sonic Arts in September 2024.

Alan earned his BM at the Boston Conservatory where he studied with John Murphree, Dr. Eun Young Lee, Dr. Curtis Hughes, and Dr. Marti Epstein, and earned his MA at Tufts University where he studied with John McDonald and Kareem Roustom. Alan recently earned his DMA (Doctorate of Musical Arts) at the University of Colorado Boulder where he taught an Introduction to Music Technology course.

As a composer, I sit at the intersection of two fundamental influences: the sounds and politics of my childhood landscapes (specifically, northern New Mexico, west Texas, and Appalachian North Carolina) and bluegrass performance and technique. I have always been drawn to natural spaces, but my experiences in the American Southwest’s rural, isolated communities have sparked a deep curiosity in the political, environmental, and industrial forces that contribute to the high desert landscape and lifestyle. Much of my recent music sonifies abandoned properties across the Permian Basin and the sprawling northern New Mexican desert, including gas stations, defunct rail lines, and hotels. I am also an avid field-recording artist, and many of my recordings contribute to the landscape-inspired textures of my compositions. 

Bluegrass and American old-time music has been a major part of my life since I was a child; it was always on the radio in the car, and many of my first compositions were short fiddle tunes I had written for my piano lessons. My later experience as a banjo performer has encouraged my musical language to adopt and explore picking patterns, attention to spectral textures, as well as the gritty perspectives on nature, spirituality, and social systems offered by bluegrass lyricists. 

Ultimately, it is my aim to illuminate the nuances contained in both the American Southwest landscape and politics as well as the bluegrass tradition through their collision in my music, and to broadly share what I believe to be two underrepresented cultural entities to the concert stage and beyond.