Alexander Platt, Music Director
Alexander Platt is now serving his fourteenth season as Music Director of The Wisconsin Philharmonic. Also the newly-appointed Music Director of the La Crosse Symphony in Wisconsin and the Grand Forks Symphony in North Dakota, Alexander Platt has forged a unique career among the younger American conductors, combining a true commitment to regional orchestras and their communities with an ability to lead cutting-edge projects on the international scene. These accomplishments are built on his bedrock experience as the Apprentice Conductor (1991-93) of the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Opera and follow 12 seasons as Music Director of the nearbyRacine Symphony Orchestra, which he transformed from a struggling community orchestra into an artistically and financially thriving institution. In addition to now serving in his fifteenth season as Music Director of the Marion, Indiana Philharmonic—which has continued to thrive under his leadershipdespite difficult economic circumstances—Alexander Platt just completed three very exciting years as Principal Conductor and Music Advisor of the Boca Raton Symphonia. An assignment born of his debut with Sir James Galway, on 48 hours’ notice, at the International Festival of the Arts Boca, Mr. Platt led the ensemble (in the opinion of The Palm Beach Post) into becoming the finest of the orchestras to emerge out of the collapse of the Florida Philharmonic.
Following widely acclaimed assignments with the Minnesota Opera and the Skylight Opera Theatre, Alexander Platt made his debut with Chicago Opera Theater in 1997 conducting Mozart's DON GIOVANNI and was appointed Resident Conductor and Music Advisor in 2000. Over the following decade, he led the Chicago premieres of such demanding 20th-century masterworks as Britten’s DEATH IN VENICE, John Adams’ NIXON IN CHINA, the Bizet/Peter Brook LA TRAGEDIE DE CARMEN, and the Britten/Shakespeare A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM; the double-bill of Schoenberg’s ERWARTUNG and Bartok’s BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE; the world premiere of the Tony Kushner/Maurice Sendak version of Hans Krasa’s BRUNDIBAR; and the world-premiere recording of Kurka’s THE GOOD SOLDIER SCHWEIK—all to high acclaim in Opera News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times of London, and both the great Chicago papers. In 2007 he made his Canadian debut at the Banff Music Festival, leading the co-premiere (in collaboration with the Calgary Opera) of John Estacio’s FROBISHER to accolades inOpera Canada magazine.
As a guest-conductor Alexander Platt has led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Freiburg Philharmonic in Germany and for three years the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark, as well as Camerata Chicago, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Lexington and Hudson Valley Philharmonics, and the Houston, Charlotte, Columbus, Flagstaff, Sioux City, El Paso and Indianapolis Symphonies. Alexander made his New York debut in 2007 with the Brooklyn Philharmonic before thousands in Central Park, the first of several appearances with that orchestra; in 2011 he makes his debut with the Illinois Philharmonic in an all-Beethoven program.
Alexander Platt spends his summers in the Hudson River Valley as the sixth Music Director of The Maverick Concerts, in Woodstock, New York—the oldest summer chamber-music series in America, which under his direction has become a thriving, eclectic festival. A recent highlight of his achievements there was his conducting the world premiere of his own chamber-orchestra version of DavidDel Tredici’s FINAL ALICE for soprano and large orchestra(1976). Created under a Rockefeller grant from the New York State Music Fund, his new version was hailed by The New York Times as a workable version of Del Tredici's masterpiece; in summer 2011Mr.Platt will lead his ownofficial chamber version of another neglected American masterpiece, Leonard Bernstein’s SONGFEST.
Alexander Platt has conducted the U.S. premieres of works of Britten, Shostakovich, Ned Rorem, Colin Matthews, Russell Platt, and Judith Weir, and in Boca Raton led his own large-orchestra version of Libby Larsen's Sonnets from the Portuguese. With the Wisconsin Philharmonic he recently led the world premiere of Joseph Schwantner’s symphony Chasing Light, as part of a consortium of American orchestras under the Ford Motor Fund/League of American Orchestras Made In America commission; and in 2010-11, he leads both Aaron Jay Kernis’ Simple Songs and the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s newly revised Third Symphony, with the same ensemble.
A research scholar for the National Endowment for the Humanities before he entered college, Alexander Platt was educated at Yale University, as a conducting fellow at both Aspen and Tanglewood, and then at King’s College Cambridge under a British Marshall Scholarship. At Cambridge he led all of the important musical societies, deputized in the legendary King’s College Choir, and as conductor of the Cambridge University Opera Society led a revival of Britten’s neglected OWEN WINGRAVE that earned him high praise in the London press. During this time he also made his professional debut at the Aldeburgh Festival, his London debut at the Wigmore Hall, and reconstructed the lost chamber version of the Mahler Fourth Symphony, which has gone on to become a classic of the repertoire. In addition to recording for National Public Radio, the South-West German Radio and the BBC, his 2004 recording of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy with violinist Rachel Barton still appears frequently on radio stations across America.