Program Head, Music
About
Alex Wand is a musician and composer whose work emerges from his interests in folk songs, ecological thought, futurism, social practice art, alternate tuning systems, field recording, and dance/multimedia collaborations. His music has been described as having "melody lines that can circle through one's head for days after listening, begging to be rewound and re-listened and timbres and layers that are supremely joyful and poignant and at times absolutely laid bare in their sincerity" (New Classic LA).
Alex is a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, viola da gamba, voice, synth) who has performed at venues and festivals from California to Tibet, such as the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum, REDCAT, the Tongyeong International Music Festival, MicroFest, Center for New Music, and the Xinghai International Poetry Festival. He is a Grammy Award-winning member of the Partch Ensemble and performs as a solo artist and in his music collective Desert Magic.
His project Monarch Waystation Soundmap is a collaborative music/art initiative that documents the Western monarch butterfly migration through cycling journeys, habitat restoration, and geo-tagged field recordings. This work evolved into both a documentary film and an electroacoustic composition called Spectre. Alex has also composed scores for numerous films, including works screened at the Tribeca and Austin Film Festivals, and the Emmy Award-winning PBS series "Lost LA."
A native of Metro Detroit, Alex studied music at the University of Michigan (BA), California Institute of the Arts (MFA), and UC Santa Cruz (DMA). His music has been released on MicroFest Records, Symbol Music Group, Hungry Badger, Frog Peak Music, and SADFAM Records. His work can be found online at alexwand.com.
