Alpha Kayondo is a native of Guelph and University of Guelph music Alumni. This young artist commenced his music career in a guitar studio at the tender age of five. Hooked, he wrote his first song in the same year, began vocal lessons at age six and took up piano a year later. From 2002 to 2008, Kayondo was a chorister in Guelph Youth Singers (GYS). Through this opportunity, he would go on to record background vocals for 2008’s The Love Guru soundtrack, as well as become a guest singer for the Guelph Symphony Orchestra on two occasions.
Through teen-hood, Kayondo continued to pursue music, landing a spot as singer-songwriter and keyboardist in The Challenger, a local band out of the Octave Music Centre tutored by Kevin Saltarelli. With the help of Kevin and the other band participants, the young MC continued to find his voice and solidify his composition style by creating music that would interweave his love for lyrical Hip-Hop and melodic Film Score. While writing his music, he would rigorously train vocals with Marion Samuel-Stevens, a guide who encouraged Kayondo to enter serious vocal competitions; winning first and second place prizes became a familiar sound. In the 2018 Kiwanis Music Festival Singer-Songwriter class, Kayondo became the first to receive the only mark of 100 in adjudicator John Avey’s history at the festival. A year later, Kayondo graduated from the University of Guelph’s music program, having been a proud tenor in the Marta McCarthy conducted Gryphon Singers for two seasons.
Currently, Kayondo teaches voice and piano lessons at Jam School in the royal city. This past year he has scored a number of short-films for Humber College students, and continues to collaborate with the University of Guelph and other underground filmmakers, music producers, and fellow recording artists. His dream? To be the first widely recognized African-Canadian film score composer.
Twitter: @107Alpha
Instagram: @107Alpha
Listen on: Soundcloud.com/the_107