The Dutch born Alexis Magito (1711-1773) was a cellist, composer and engraver of music. He was part of a well known 18th-century Dutch family of musicians, fairground showmen, and acrobats. Alexis followed in his father's footsteps and became a musician. While studying at Leiden University (1746-1755) he gave concerts throughout the entire country.
He is the five-times great uncle of British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who discovered this legacy in the 20th season of the BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? The editor of the current edition played bits of Magito's first sonata for him during the programme.
He engraved several books of music, of which the Concerti Armonici by Unico van Wassenaer is the most famous. At the end of the 1750s he immigrated to England. His 6 cello sonatas, Opus 1, were published by John Wynne in Cambridge around 1759 (and very probably engraved by Alexis himself). From 1763 onwards he often appeared in the Cambridge music scene, playing concerts with the Dutch violinist Pieter Hellendaal, the double bass player John Wynne, and several others. The engraving on the cover of the Edition HH publication of Magito's cello sonatas was made representing one of these occasions. Alexis died in 1773 as "a man very eminent in his profession, and generally respected" (Cambridge Chronicle October 1773).
