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Alexander Walker

Professional Staff - Academic Studies

Music

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Faculty of Music
King Charles Court
Old Royal Naval College
Greenwich
London
SE10 9JF

Tel: +44 (0)20 8305 4444

Email: a.walker@trinitylaban.ac.uk

Area of Work

Conducting
Alexander Walker

Biography

Alexander Walker is a regular guest conductor with orchestras throughout the world. In the UK, he has conducted the BBC Philharmonic (broadcasting on BBC Radio 3), City of London Sinfonia, the New Queens Hall Orchestra and recently made his debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at London’s Cadogan Hall. In recent years, he also developed a relationship with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducting them both in the recording studio and the concert hall, including the prestigious Elgar Birthday concert in Malvern. This year, he was awarded the Elgar Society awarded him their highest honour, the Elgar Medal.

His engagements internationally have included concerts with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Russian Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra New Russia (Music Director Yuri Bashmet), George Enescu Philharmonic, Bucharest and North Hungarian Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted most of Poland’s major orchestras and works regularly with a number of orchestras in Finland, Denmark, the Balkans and elsewhere.

His pioneering recordings of Waghalter’s music for violin and orchestra with the RPO and Irmina Trynkos and orchestral music with Symphony Orchestra New Russia music as well as CDs of symphonies by Havergal Brian with the same orchestra on the Naxos label have been greeted by both critical and popular acclaim. A further disc of Brian symphonies will be released in the Spring.

He regularly works at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and has toured with the Royal Ballet throughout the USA (including the Metropolitan Opera House and the Kennedy Centre) to the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Opera Theatres in Russia, to Turkey and Asia. He has conducted The Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. He was Music Director for Swan Lake for the Finnish National Opera and The Nutcracker for the Norwegian National Opera, as well as conducting productions for Scottish Ballet and the Northern Ballet Theatre.

In addition to a passion for Middle and Eastern European 19th and 20th century symphonic repertoire, Alexander has a love of opera, including the major Mozart Operas in his repertoire as well as works by Puccini, Janáček, Verdi, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Glinka. He has worked for a number of opera companies including Opera North, Grange Park Opera and English Touring Opera. As Music Director of Britten’s Turn of the Screw at the Istanbul State Opera, he conducted the first ever Turkish production of one of the composer’s operas. In 2011, he conducted the premiere of Julian Grant’s Prophet and Loss for the Oundle International Festival.

After graduating in music from Bristol University and postgraduate studies at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he studied with Ilya Musin at St Petersburg State Conservatoire. He has since worked throughout the former Soviet Union, where a number of his performances have been broadcast on National Radio and television.

Alexander teaches at the Royal Academy of Music as well as conducting the Junior Department Sinfonia. He conducts Surrey County Youth Orchestra.