Alexander Walker

In the UK, he has conducted the BBC Philharmonic (broadcasting on BBC Radio 3), City of London Sinfonia, New Queens Hall Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra and recently made his debut with the English Chamber Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, who he has conducted both in the recording studio and the concert hall including the prestigious Elgar Birthday concert in Malvern. In 2017 he was awarded the Elgar Society Medal for the work he has done to promote the composer’s music throughout the world.

His engagements internationally have included concerts with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Prague Philharmonia, Russian Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic and North Hungarian Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest conductor with Musica Viva and Symphony Orchestra New Russia in Moscow and with the George Enescu Philharmonic, Bucharest. He has conducted most of Poland’s major orchestras and works with a number of orchestras in Finland, Denmark, the Balkans and elsewhere.

His pioneering recordings of Ignatz 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 has worked regularly at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden touring 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 has been 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 conducting and is a regular conductor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. He teaches second study conducting at the Royal Academy of Music and conducts the Junior Department Sinfonia and Symphony Orchestra.