Alexandre David
(1989 - )

Alexandre David (1989; Montreal) is a Quebec composer, performer, educator and radio presenter. His music addresses transdisciplinarity, sociology and musical semiology, often in close collaboration with artists of various origins. Fascinated by the translation and transformation of extramusical sources into the sound medium, he is interested in the listeners' perception of musical objects and the meanings that can be given to them.
His catalogue includes more than forty works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, soloist and gamelan. Described as abundant, imaginative and virtuoso, his music has been performed in Canada, the United States, South Korea and Croatia. He has notably collaborated with the Orchestre Métropolitain (directed by Jean-François Rivest), the Orchestre de la Francophonie (directed by Jean-Philippe Tremblay), the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra (directed by Deanna Tham), the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (dir. Fabián Panisello), the Land's End Ensemble, the Paramirabo ensemble, the Mise-en ensemble (dir. Moon Young Ha), ISO Project, Instruments of Happiness, the Arkea ensemble (dir. Dina Gilbert), the ensemble Choros, ensemble Giri Kedaton (dir. Dewa Made Suparta), Ensemble de saxophones de Montréal, ensemble Kô (dir. Tiphaine Legrand) as well as with soloists Philippe Prud'homme, Claudine Ledoux, Julie Trudeau , Christopher Goddard and Jean-Guy Boisvert.
In 2015, his piece La grande Rapa won first prize at the Land’s End Ensemble Composers Competition. In 2016, his piece Le silence qui suit won both the Ensemble Choros composition competition prize as well as the second prize of the Ensemble Prisme composition competition. In 2017, he was a finalist in the Accès / Arkea competition, during which his work qui fuit… was created. The collective work De Natura Sonorum, to which he has contributed with four other composers, was a finalist for the Opus 2018 awards as well as for the 2018 Prix collégien de musique contemporaine. That same year, he won the composition competition of the Ensemble de saxophones de Montréal for which he wrote the work Seokgamoni Bul, presented at the 18th World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb, Croatia. He is the recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec.
Alexandre David has participated in several creative development events including the Soundstreams Emerging Composers Workshop (Toronto, ON, Canada), the Waterloo Regional Contemporary Music Sessions (Waterloo, ON, Canada), the Atlantic Music Festival (Waterville, ME, United States), Orford Music (Orford, QC, Canada), and Incubating 001 (Seoul, South Korea) as well as residencies at the Playa centre, at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and in Hellerau, at the Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden (Dresden, Germany ).
He is currently a host on Pulsar, a radio show featuring new music from here and elsewhere. Alexandre David teaches Balinese music at the Université de Montréal as part of the gamelan workshop. He holds a Master's degree in composition from the Université de Montréal where he studied with François-Hugues Leclair and Denis Gougeon. Through his various formations, he has benefited from the mentorship of composers James Rolfe, David Lang, Edith Canat de Chizy, Ana Sokolovic, Jean Lesage and Nils Vigeland.