Bio

Alex Rotundo started composing when he was 6. His first compositions were written on his room walls and house doors, but got lost due to cleanups and paint jobs. His first orchestral work was written when he was 10, and premiered by the intermediate division of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra. Since then, he has won composition awards including Honorable Mention in the 2017 Kris Getz Award for his Perpetual Motion for piano trio, winner of the 2014 Multicultural Sonic Evolution Composition Competition for his clarinet and piano piece Antagonism, winner of the 2012 National Association of Composers, USA competition for Canzone del Violino Verde for violin and orchestra, and 3rd Prize in the Open Own Composition section of the United States Open Music Competition for his solo piano piece Lamberto. From 2014 to 2018 he studied composition and violin in the Pre-College division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music respectively with David Conte and Joseph Maile, and in 2018 and 2019 was in the composition program of the European American Musical Alliance. In 2021 he was a composition fellow at the Brevard Music Center, and studied at the 2023 Choral Chameleon Summer Institute.

Outside of his compositional activity, Alex is serving as Music Director at The Good Table United Church of Christ in El Sobrante, CA, and during the 2024-25 season he served as pianist for the Toledo Opera artist-in-residence program. He is the recipient of a High School Diploma in Piano Performance from the American College of Musicians, and has received certificates from the Music Teachers' Association of California in their Regional and State Panel Auditions, and an Advanced Certificate of Merit. From 2012 to 2018 he was a violinist in the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, and played upright and electric bass in the Hillsdale High School Jazz Ensemble. Alex holds an M.M. in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he was in the Mason Bates studio, and a B.M. from the Peabody Institute, where he studied with Kevin Puts. Upon graduating from Peabody, he was the recipient of their Otto Ortmann Composition Prize.