Workshop – Secularism and The Organ: An Obstacle or Opportunity?
Convention Hotel
7/8/2020 11:00 AM – 11:25 AM
Alexander Meszler is committed to interdisciplinary performance and research that inspire new perspectives on the organ. He is completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ with Kimberly Marshall at Arizona State University. He received a Fulbright grant in 2018 for his research on secularism and the organ and studied organ in Versailles, France, with Jean-Baptiste Robin. Alexander has received numerous grants for similar research and has presented at conferences including those of the European Association for the Study of Religions, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, and the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies.
A strong advocate of music by living composers, Alexander currently serves as a member of the American Guild of Organists’ Committee on New Music. He has collaborated with composers Huw Morgan, Matthew Briggs, Hon Ki Cheung, and George Katehis on the premieres of their organ works. His performance project, Walls of Sound: The Ecology of the Borderlands, funded in part by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts out of New York City, brought together collaborators from across disciplines including musicians, scientists, activists, and an actor.
Alexander has been a finalist in several performance competitions, and in 2016 he won second prize at the Westchester University Organ Competition. He completed his master’s degree in organ performance and music theory at the University of Kansas where he studied organ with Michael Bauer and James Higdon. He earned his bachelor’s degree in organ with Kola Owolabi at Syracuse University.