Alex Brady played the clarinet when he first joined his elementary school’s band class in fifth grade.

That is, until his first semester that year ended with a different sort of Christmas “break.”

Brady broke his wrist shortly before the holidays. He found out he could not play the clarinet for at least a couple months. Instead of sitting around band class as he waited for his wrist to heal, Brady decided on a whim to give a smaller woodwind instrument a try.

“I got a hold of a flute and just immediately started playing it,” Brady said. “I hadn’t had any formal instruction, but just instantly I was playing alongside my other peers and just fell in love with it.”

By the time his wrist healed, Brady already passed his clarinet off to his twin sister Adriana as he improved enough to get bumped up to his middle school band program.

Brady, this week’s CapFed® TrueBlue® Student of the Week, continued to excel above his grade level as a flutist throughout middle school and high school. He received one of his highest honors during the last semester of his senior year at St. James Academy. Brady earned the Topeka Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition overall winner in 2022-23. He performed Cécile Chaminade’s Concertino, Op. 107 during the event back in late January.

“I guess I really wasn’t expecting to win that one,” he said, noting that he decided to apply for the competition at the last minute. “It was such a surreal moment. Musicians grow up watching recordings of professionals standing up with the orchestra and playing.”

Brady, who also won the Northwinds Concerto Competition this year and was a Mid-South Flute Competition finalist, has been in a lot of performances, ensembles and competitions over the last few years. But he said his performance with the Topeka Symphony Orchestra felt like “a turning point.”

“I guess realizing that I was becoming that professional that my younger self would be watching online or on recordings,” he said.

Helen Harrelson, the director of instrumental music at St. James Academy, said she’s seen that potential in Brady for a long time. Harrelson began working with Brady when he first got started in band nearly a decade ago.

“Alex has a work ethic that is just remarkable,” Harrelson said. “During my time teaching students in England and in America, I have not had too many students as motivated to learn and improve as he has been.”

Not only did Brady work hard to keep improving, Harrelson was struck by how willing he was to give back with music.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, younger students looking to continue advancing in music needed more access to either one-on-one or small group instruction.

Brady offered to step into the role of teacher and private instructor.

“These young students in our music programs were missing out on this instruction during an important stage of learning,” Harrelson said. “Brady stepped up and helped us keep these kids on track for their music courses.”

Brady said he was more than happy to take on that role. He just hopes he was able to deliver the same value that his teachers have bestowed upon him.

“It’s really an honor to be able to do that, to share just the wealth of information that I’ve been given,” Brady said. “I’ve had really amazing teachers. It seems like I’ve met the teachers who I needed to learn from at the right moment in my music career.”

Brady gives credit to his many teachers over the years for his own development as a musician. He has completed eight different master classes under nationally renowned musicians, while also auditing nearly a dozen more. He pointed to Harrelson, Dr. Daniel Velasco, Melissa Cain, Annie Gnojek and Kayla Burggraf as influential instructors in his music performance education.

“As a teacher now, I want to share all of the information that I learned with the younger students to share all the mistakes that I made,” he said. “Show them the successes, but what works and what doesn’t.”

Brady sees teaching as a career as a possibility, but he definitely sees that as an extension of his professional music performance career.

“My ultimate goal is to be an orchestral musician and playing with a professional orchestra,” Brady said. “But musicians have really diverse careers. You’re not confined to just having one 9-to-5 job. You’re doing so many different things.”

He pictures a future where he has a studio of students that take lessons from him while also maintaining both a solo career and playing in chamber groups. 

Brady will attend University of Kansas in the fall with a full-ride scholarship after graduating with a 4.53 GPA at St. James. He said that he was accepted to a number of top music schools, but he already found a mentor in Lawrence through his advanced studies.

After taking an online music theory course with Juilliard Extension heading into his senior year, Brady followed up with a orchestral flute course at KU with Velasco.

“I felt that my current teacher, a professor at KU, that I would learn just so much from him there,” he said.

Brady finishes his high school career with a wealth of accolades which include earning KMEA Orchestra all-state honors and KMEA Band all-state honors as second chair as a flutist.

In addition to his work giving back as an instructor, Brady has also logged another 60 hours of community service with his work at Turnstyles Thrift Store and Sacred Heart Church’s vacation bible school.