ABOUT

A versatile conductor par excellence, Alexander Kahn is equally at home with community, educational, and professional orchestras. His repertoire spans the gamut, from the Baroque period to the 21st century and from opera to film music to educational programming.

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Alexander Kahn is Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Activities at Sonoma State University. At Sonoma State he directs the Sonoma State Symphony Orchestra and teaches courses in conducting, music history, musicianship, and general education.

Alexander comes to Sonoma State from Gettysburg College, where he was Associate Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Activities at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music. He is also the Founder and former Music Director of the UC Berkeley Chamber Orchestra and the former Assistant Conductor UC Berkeley Symphony.

Alexander has worked with a variety of orchestras across the United States and throughout Europe. Currently he serves as Assistant and Cover Conductor for the Santa Rosa Symphony, Music Director and Conductor of the Napa Valley Youth Symphony, and Music Director of the Vintner’s Chamber Orchestra, a professional chamber orchestra that performs at wineries throughout Sonoma and Napa counties. Previous positions he has held include Music Director of the Metta Ensemble (Gettysburg, PA), Cover Conductor for the Baltimore Symphony, Staff Conductor for the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, Assistant Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, and Music Director of the Bamberg Collegium Musicum. Recent guest conducting engagements have included work with the Winchester Orchestra of San Jose, the Mill Valley Philharmonic, Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, Encore Coda and Cazadero Performing Arts Camps, and middle school and high school honor orchestras throughout California. As a champion for orchestral music education, he serves on the Advisory Board for the California Orchestra Director’s Association (CODA).

Alexander earned a PhD in Music History from UC Berkeley and remains active as a scholar. His dissertation entitled “Double Lives: Exile Composers in Los Angeles” focused on the community of European exiles who fled to Los Angeles during the Third Reich. He has lectured and published on this topic and other issues related to World-War II-era music history, as well on a on a variety of topics including music and mindfulness meditation, the history of film music, and the history of amateur music-making in America. His book on the intersection of mindfulness and the Alexander Technique, Caring for the Whole Musician, co-authored with Larry Hensel, was published by Routledge Press in May 2023. He offers workshops on mindfulness for musicians throughout the world, including annually at the One Heart Institute in Ukiah, CA.

Alexander’s love of music was inherited from his father, Eugene Kahn, a conductor and educator on Long Island. His primary conducting studies were at UC Berkeley with David Milnes and at the Peabody Institute with Marin Alsop, Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar. He has also participated in conducting workshops around the world with teachers including Larry Rachleff, Kenneth Kiesler, Daniel Lewis and Peter Gülke. 

When not conducting, Alexander enjoys cooking, hiking, reading, and traveling, and spending time with his wonderful wife and daughter.