Music Director

Mr. Kristian Alexander is the founding Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Kindred Spirits Orchestra, the founding Music Director of the International Music Academy, the founding Artistic Director of Markham Contemporary Music Festival and the founding Artistic Director of the International Music Festival and Competition (Toronto). He was also the founding Music Director of the Mozarteum Symphony Orchestra in Sofia (Bulgaria), the first privately own art organization in Eastern Europe dedicated to the performing and recording of compositions by Mozart. Kristian Alexander has conducted Internationale Bach-Collegium and Gächinger Kantorei in Stuttgart, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Oratorio Society and Orchestra, the National Opera of Bucharest, the National Teleradio Symphony Orchestra of Moldova, Lutosławski Philharmonic Orchestra and Malawski Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland, and Kindred Spirits Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, the Opéra de Montréal Orchestra, the Royal Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra (Toronto), Oakville Chamber Orchestra, Guelph Symphony Orchestra, Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra, Vaughan Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Symphony Orchestra and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Sofia.

Mr. Kristian Alexander has worked with internationally renowned conductors Charles Dutoit, Gustav Meier, Marin Alsop, Helmuth Rilling, John Morris Russell, Nurhan Arman, David Agler, and Nedialko Nedialkov. He also collaborated with soloists Christina Quilico, Ann Hobson Pilot, Jacques Israelievitch, James Parker and André Laplante. He recorded several live concerts for the International Bachakademie (Stuttgart), the National Radio Broadcasting Company and the National Television of Bulgaria. Mr. Kristian Alexander conducted in many major concert halls in Europe, Africa and Canada: Sony Centre for the performing arts, Roy Thompson Hall, Ettore Mazzoleni Hall and the CBC Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Lieder Halle in Stuttgart, Hong Kong City Concert Hall, Cairo Opera House, Bulgaria Hall and the National Palace of culture in Sofia, among others.

Since the beginning of his tenure as Music Director of the Kindred Spirits Orchestra in 2009, Mr. Kristian Alexander has performed a vast repertoire that includes Shostakovich’s, Richard Strauss’, Berlioz’, Beethoven’s, Brahms’, Mendelssohn’s and Schumann’s symphonies as well as all major instrumental concerti by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Grieg, Schuman, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns. In 2011, Mr. Alexander and the Kindred Spirits Orchestra has forged an important artistic partnership with the creation of Markham Contemporary Music Festival, an annual event that has brought to life great pieces of the 20th century, including Lutoslavsky’s Symphonic Variations, Stravisnky’s Symphony No. 1, Philip Glass’ Concerto for violin and orchestra No. 1, Honegger’s Pastoral d’été and others. Mr. Kristian Alexander is also avid supporter of Canadian contemporary music, having performed with the Kindred Spirits Orchestra compositions by Garry Kulesha, Brian Current, Larysa Kuzmenko, Daniel Friedman, Kevin Lau, James Campbell, and Constantine Caravassilis. 

In 2023, Kristian Alexander gave the world première of “Ukrainian Rhapsody” by Alexander Rosenblatt. He also gave the Canadian première of internationally acclaimed composer John Williams’ “On Willows and Birches”, the world premières of James Campbell’s Concerto for harp and orchestra and Chan Wing-Wah’s “Phoenix Dance” as well as the North-American première of Chan Wing-Wah’s Symphony No. 9 for soloists, choir and orchestra. In 2017, Maestro Alexander conducted a sold-out performance at the 3,200-seat Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in downtown Toronto of the first international concert-tribute to the Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman. In 2018, he made a highly acclaimed Asian début with the Hong Kong Oratorio Society and Orchestra, which he returned to conduct in 2023 as well.

Mr. Kristian Alexander speaks fluently English, French, Russian, and Bulgarian and has a working knowledge of Italian, German, Czech, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. In addition to master degrees in orchestral and choral conducting, music theory and history, he also holds degrees in anthropology, psychology, theology, and arts management from academies and universities in Toronto, Montreal, Stuttgart and Sofia. Mr. Kristian Alexander has also been a mentor for many young musicians and conductors through various positions he held at the International Baccalaureate Organization in England, the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, as well as, in Canada, at the Atelier lyrique de l‘Opéra de Montréal, the International Music Academy, the International Bilingual School, the Weldon Park Academy and the London French School. He has also published articles on philosophy of music in major scientific journals and research papers for the Bulgarian Academy of Science, the University of Toronto and the Université de Montréal. Mr. Kristian Alexander has been a recipient of several awards from the Canada Arts Council, London City Council, Université de Montréal, Internationale Bachakademie (Stuttgart), the Mozarteum Internationale Stiftung (Salzburg), Open Society Foundation (New York), Pro Helvetia Foundation (Bern) and the National Music Academy (Sofia).

In 2021, Kristian Alexander implemented for a first time in Canada an eco-conscious digital music library platform that permanently replaced paper-based operations with iPad Pro tablets made available to all musicians of the Kindred Spirits Orchestra.

In 2019, Kristian Alexander founded the International Music Festival and Competition, a charitable organization that has for a mission to provide young musicians with opportunities to perform, to conduct and to write music, while receiving professional guidance in collaboration with leading experts in the classical music industry from the University of Toronto and York University, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, the National Ballet of Canada, the Royal Conservatory of Music and the Glenn Gould Professional School.

In 2011, Kristian Alexander founded the Markham Contemporary Music Festival, a charitable organization that promotes the performance by local artists of music written worldwide in the 20^th and the 21^st centuries by Canadian, Indigenous, American, Asian, and European composers and includes lectures and seminars in both English and French, workshops, master-classes, pre-concert chats, intermission discussions, post-concert receptions, documentary films about the life of contemporary composers, and networking events.

In recognition of his musicianship, Maestro Alexander was elected for six consecutive years to represent Canada on the Board of Directors of the International Conductors Guild (2002-2008), as well as at the London Arts Council (1999-2001), and the Southern Ontario Music Chamber Institute (2004-2006). In 2006 he was invited to moderate in New York City a highly acclaimed panel with conductors from the Juilliard School, Pierre Monteux School for Conductors, and Eastman School of Music. In 2007, he was appointed advisor of the Conductors Guild international workshop for conductors led by renowned Maestro Jorma Panula (Finland) and Maestro Raffi Armenian (Canada). In 2007 as well, he was appointed Chair of the first International conference for conductors in Toronto.

A dedicated pedagogue, Maestro Alexander has also been on the Faculty of several educational institutions, both in Canada and abroad. Since 2005, he has taught conducting and advanced interpretation at the International Music Academy and since 2003 he has been consultant in music education at the International Baccalaureate Organization (London, England). In addition, he has also taught modern languages and interpretation at the Atelier lyrique de l‘Opéra de Montréal and instrumental music at the Canadian Conservatory for Music and Arts and at the Weldon Park Academy (London).

Since 2000, Maestro Alexander has given over a 1,000 bursaries and scholarships to neurodiverse children, youth-at-risk, children with disabilities, and children in low-income families, to help them learning a musical instrument. In 2015, he also donated a grand piano and a 2-manual organ to the remote community of the Easter Island. These musical instruments, travelling 36,000 km by sea, arrived in 2016 for the inauguration of the first music school in the history of this distinct society. Maestro Alexander has also been a supporter of Orchestra Canada, American Federation of Musicians, American Symphony Orchestra League, Conductors Guild, Friends of Glenn Gould Society, and Interkulturelle Gesellschaft (Switzerland).

In 1997 Maestro Alexander was invited as an assistant orchestra and choir conductor for several presentations of the opera Jenůfa (L. Janáček) at the Opéra de Montréal. The performance was outstanding and has been praised by the critics as “one of the best productions in the history of the Opera of Montreal” (Robert Markow, Le Magazine de la Place des Arts, Montreal, Quebec, 2000). During the same years Maestro Alexander was also a voice consultant for several internationally acclaimed actors and actresses in Quebec, such as Louise Marleau, Marc Béland, and Pierre Collins.

Kristian Alexander is also the author of three research papers: “Le Magnificat: trois lecture musicales. L’interprétation de la symbolique et de la forme textuelle dans les Magnificat de H. Schütz, de J. S. Bach et de W. A. Mozart” (for the Université de Montréal, 2005), “Utah Symphony and Utah Opera: a merger proposal“ (for the University of Toronto, 2004), and “Mozart’s Davide penitente KV 469: Philosophical, aesthetics, formal, and conducting analysis” (for the National Academy of Music, Sofia, 1994). He is also the author of two publications in major scientific journals: “Typology of the form of the compositions for magnificat” (Institute of musicology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, v. 1, 1997) and “Energetic interactions between music text and sound: etude on philosophy of music” (Institute of philosophical research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, v. 3, 1996).