Alex Monroe (beyond this point, Music Director, The Little Match Girl Passion) is a native of St. Louis, MO, Alex holds degrees in percussion performance from Northwestern University (M.M.) and Truman State University (B.M.). A strong advocate of new music and collaborative art, Alex co-founded beyond this point, an experimental percussion group specializing in inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary work, alongside Chicago percussionist John Corkill. The ensemble's previous work with dado includes 

two unique productions infused with percussion, Harold Pinter’s Celebration (infused with the music of Mauricio Kagel) and the original play The Silence That Follows, at A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago. Additionally, the ensemble’s work on the Artistic Home’s 2015 rendition of Macbeth garnered a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for its acoustic, percussive sound design, and the ensemble was featured at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention the same year.

beyond this point's collaborators include Matthew Duvall of the four-time GRAMMY-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, Chicago directors dado and Scott Westerman, and Minneapolis-based composer/choreographer Peter O'Gorman. The ensemble's recent projects focus on the relationship of humans to the natural world. A new series of programs by the collaboration entitled nature | human features a collection of immersive, contemplative, and powerful works that explore and interact with the very substance of what defines the world of percussion: the base materials (stone, seed, metal, skin, cactus, wood) activated to musical purpose. 

Alex is also an arts administrator and grants professional who has worked with Eighth Blackbird, Blair Thomas & Co., the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, and the Lake Forest Symphony. 

Alex proudly endorses Vic Firth drum sticks and mallets.