38 Facts About Alexander Frey

Alexander Frey, KM, KStJ, is an American symphony orchestra conductor, virtuoso organist, pianist, harpsichordist and composer.

Alexander Frey has been described as "a witty, urbane figure whose wide-ranging genius is evident in the immense breadth of his accomplishments and activities in so many musical genres, and in his performances onstage and in conversation offstage".

Alexander Frey often plays his solo piano recitals with a lamp next to or on the instrument providing the only stage light, and an oriental rug underneath the instrument to "create an intimacy between my audience and the music, as if everyone were in my living room listening together".

Alexander Frey is a prominent member of Berlin's intellectual and artistic communities.

Alexander Frey is Artist-in-Residence of the Gaulitana Festival, a major month-long international music festival held on the island of Gozo in Malta.

Alexander Frey is an Honorary Citizen of the city of Bari, Italy.

Alexander Frey received this honor in a ceremony immediately following a performance he conducted with the Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari in 2009.

In 2022, Alexander Frey received three knighthoods: Knight of Malta, Knight of the Order of Saint John, and Knight of the Guardians of Peace, Italy.

Alexander Frey is of Greek and Swiss descent with family currently residing in Greece, Mulhouse and Paris.

Alexander Frey was Principal Conductor of the Rome Philharmonic Orchestra from 1996 to 2004, and during that time was the only American music director of an Italian symphony orchestra.

Alexander Frey was appointed conductor of the Bohemia Symphony Orchestra in Prague, Czech Republic from 2000 to 2006.

Alexander Frey conducted Ensemble Europa in sold-out concerts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Berlin commemorating the 50th anniversary of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps.

Alexander Frey has been Music Director for major productions at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Wiener Festwochen, Venice Festival, Holland Festival, the Fifth European Festival, the Copenhagen Opera Festival, Karlin Theater, Varna State Opera, Opera Romana Craiova and the International Festival Elena Teodorini.

Alexander Frey was the first American to hold a position at the Berliner Ensemble, as well as being the theater's first non-German Music Director; his historic predecessors who held the same music directorship included the composers Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, and Paul Dessau.

Alexander Frey devised the idea of restoring the entire original film score and performing it live throughout the play using exactly the same music cues as in the film, marking the first time this technique was ever used.

Alexander Frey repeated this method for a subsequent production in Austria of a stage version of the film Arsenic and Old Lace.

Alexander Frey frequently played recitals with the renowned Grammy Award-winning tenor, Jerry Hadley.

Alexander Frey has performed chamber music with violinist Ruggiero Ricci and the Vermeer Quartet, among others.

Ricci and Alexander Frey performed New York City's official concert commemorating the tricentennial anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, given in a sold-out Alice Tully Hall on the actual day of the composer's 300th birthday.

Alexander Frey has performed duo concerts in Europe with American writer and A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor.

In 2001, Alexander Frey gave live performances for the BBC when the two artists gave recitals together in American and Europe which included sold-out performances in London's Wigmore Hall and in New York at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.

Alexander Frey performed an all-Verdi program for RAI in Italy.

Alexander Frey was the first organist to perform an entire symphony of Gustav Mahler as a solo work for organ.

Alexander Frey was the first pianist to perform the complete piano works of Leonard Bernstein in public, and he has given the world premieres of Bernstein's Five Anniversaries, Thirteen Anniversaries and Valse Gaea.

Alexander Frey has performed the cycle throughout Europe, Asia and the United States.

In 2012, Alexander Frey performed 4 sold-out organ recitals in one weekend at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Alexander Frey's recording of Korngold's Between Two Worlds for piano and orchestra was listed by Gramophone Magazine as one of the 250 Greatest Recordings of All Time.

June 2005 marked the release of a new CD of Alexander Frey conducting the world premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan, which Alexander Frey restored from the composer's manuscripts, including almost an hour of music previously unheard.

Alexander Frey's recordings are on the Koch International Classics, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, RCA Red Seal and Bach Guild labels.

Alexander Frey has maintained a strong commitment to both contemporary music and the film music of Hollywood which has been evident in the many world and regional premieres he is given.

At the 2009 "Hollywood in Vienna Festival" held in Vienna, Austria, Alexander Frey gave the first public live performance of John Williams' music to Jean-Jacques Annaud's film Seven Years in Tibet when he played a piano transcription of the complete score to that movie.

Alexander Frey performed the world premieres of Max Steiner's Wiener Lob and a large-scale piano transcription of David Arnold's music for the film Independence Day in concert with Arnold in attendance.

In Mexico, Alexander Frey conducted the Latin American premiere performances of both Bernard Herrmann's music for Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo and Franz Waxman's music for the 1941 film Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Alexander Frey gave the first public performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's music for the 1944 film Between Two Worlds, as well as the European premiere of the Suite from Schindler's List, composed and arranged by John Williams.

Alexander Frey has conducted James Helme Sutcliffe's Gymnopedie and Night Music, Charles Kalman's Hudson Concerto, Naji Hakim's Hymne de l'Univers and Ada Gentile's Adagio and Adagio Prima, Adagio Seconda.

Alexander Frey gave the world premieres of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Vier Walzer, Kurt Weill's Albumblatt and Franz Schubert's then-unpublished Fugue in D minor for organ.

Alexander Frey was Musical Advisor to the Hollywood in Vienna Festival from 2007 to 2013.

Alexander Frey studied piano for many years in Chicago as a protege of the pianist, harpsichordist and teacher Gavin Williamson, one of the last direct links to 19th-century pianism, and who was a pupil of Arthur Schnabel, Wanda Landowska, and Ethel Leginska.