ABOUT
“The work of Alex Tedrow is intellectual music for all demographics. The catchy melodies, striking harmonies, and overall quirkiness is likeable and makes the audience feel while the underlying complexity and ingenuity is still astounding.”
- Wes Taylor (saxophonist, Eastman School of Music)
"Alex Tedrow deftly scores the various timbres of the wind band in ways that make each voice shine. Terrain Unknown is a dynamic voyage for both the player and listener.” - Eric Smedley (Director of the Indiana University Symphonic Band)
"Tedrow effortlessly employs the unique nature of each instrument into complex compositions that thrill both the musician and the listener. It is evident in his work that he has a deep understanding and passion for music, truly showcasing his artistry as a composer." - Kari Novilla (harpist, Royal Academy of Music)
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Biography
Alex Tedrow is a composer, arranger, and educator who strives to connect performers and audiences of all ages with fresh, fun, and innovative music and technology. Offering a “vivacious and colorful” stylistic voice described as a “topography of beautifully integrated and deliberate sounds” (Eric Smedley, IU Symphonic Band), he regularly writes music for a wide variety of media. His works have been played internationally by musicians in both professional and educational settings – including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Wet Ink Ensemble, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, pianist Jihye Chang, harpist Ben Melsky, and multiple middle school, high school, and college ensembles across the country. With his background and training as a music educator, he frequently works as a clinician with student musicians to realize their full potential as creatives and young artists.
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Alex currently lives in the Washington D.C. area and holds a full-time position as Music Arranger for The U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own." In addition to his professional and academic activities, Alex is committed to community engagement. In 2016, he co-founded Composing for a Cause – a not-for-profit program in which professional musicians travel to hospitals for children across the United States to host songwriting and creativity workshops. In 2019, he joined the Jacobs Community Engagement Initiative focusing on cultivating sustainable development in rural Indiana communities through collaborative arts programming. During summers, he has worked as a Music Theory Instructor at the Brevard Music Center.
Alex maintains a busy schedule as a freelance composer. In 2019, he studied at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris, France during ManiFeste where he premiered Planet Playground – an interactive, real-time, data-driven project incorporating crowd participation via cell phones. He recently co-composed the original soundtrack for the PC video game, The Shadows that Linger, by Crimson Ink Games. In 2021, he was hired to score The Addict's Wake, a multi-award-winning documentary featured at film festivals, hospitals, and correctional facilities across the country covering the effects of drug addiction in rural communities. In 2023, Alex scored music for the PBS-featured documentary, Over There: Hoosier Heroes of the Great War.
Alex has been recognized with such honors as the ASCAP Morton Gould Award, the SEAMUS Allen Strange Memorial Award, and was selected as an "Emerging Artist" in the Tribeca New Music Young Composer Competition. At Indiana University, he has been a recipient of both the Georgina Joshi New Music Ensemble Commission Award and the Morris and Sheila Hass Award in Computer Music. As a scholar, Alex was a recipient of the Indiana Lilly Endowment Scholarship and the Austin B. Caswell Musicology Award for his research in medieval-era music notation.
Alex is currently completing dual M.M. and M.S. degrees in composition and music education from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he held positions as Associate Instructor in Music Education and Composition Department Coordinator. Alex is a classical saxophonist, jazz bassist, and rock keyboard and guitar player. He is also an avid traveler, hiker, foodie, and animal lover — all themes that inspire his work.