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Composer

Alexina Louie

Last updated: January 13, 2025

Acclaimed composer Alexina Louie has collaborated with leading Canadian and international soloists, ensembles, and orchestras. Her orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco, Montreal, BBC, St. Louis, Toronto, and Vancouver symphony orchestras, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra. Her compositions have been conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, Alexander Shelley, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, Pinchas Zukerman, Charles Dutoit, and Ingo Metzmacher.

Singers Barbara Hannigan and Russell Braun, violinist James Ehnes, and pianist Jon Kimura Parker are among the celebrated soloists who have performed her compositions.

Louie’s work spans a wide range of eclectic styles and technical demands, from her much-loved pedagogical piano pieces to main stage opera (The Scarlet Princess) and virtuosic chamber and solo compositions, as well as works for ballet, film, and television.

Her TV projects include the groundbreaking made-for-TV comedic mini-opera Toothpaste and the international award-winning collection of mini-operas Burnt Toast (commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

For Louie, composing music is an act of self-expression and communication. She freely explores various styles and differing inspirations to create music that reveals truths about the artistic spirit and the times in which we live.

An Officer of the Order of Canada, Alexina Louie has received numerous awards for her lifetime of music creation. She is a recipient of two Juno Awards, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, a National Arts Centre Award, a Jean A. Chalmers Award for Musical Composition, the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, the Lou Applebaum Composers Award (film and television), and two Golden Sheaf Awards for Best Original Film Music. In addition, she has received honorary doctorates from the University of Calgary and McGill University, among many other distinctions.

Her complete catalogue of works is available on her website.

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