Assistant Professor
Applied Violin and Viola
Orchestra
Contact Information
217 Cogswell
724-357-4566
Courses Taught
Applied Violin
Applied Viola
Symphony Orchestra
Class Strings
Degrees
DMA, Northwestern University
MM, Florida State University
BME, Florida State University
Biography
Alexandra Dee is the director of Orchestral Studies and assistant professor of violin and viola at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her previous positions include director of Orchestral Activities at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois;
music director and conductor of Chicago’s South Loop Symphony Orchestra; and a cover conductor for the Joffrey Ballet, with whom she debuted in 2017, leading an opening week of performances with the Chicago Philharmonic on one day’s notice. In summer
2017 she was invited to conduct at the Peninsula Music Festival (Door County, Wisconsin) as an emerging conductor. Internationally, she has conducted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Orkney Conductors Course in Scotland and the Dulwich International
Music Academy’s Festival Orchestra in Beijing, China.
Also at home in the opera pit, Dee was guest conductor for Northwestern University Opera Theater’s 2016 Chicago premiere of John Musto’s opera Later the Same
Evening. In August 2018 she served as guest conductor for Manitoba Underground Opera’s (Winnipeg) production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and she was invited to return to conduct the company’s double-bill of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and
James Rolfe’s Aeneas and Dido in August 2019.
Dee completed her doctoral studies in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where she studied with Victor Yampolsky and led performances with the University Symphony, Chamber Orchestra, Opera Theater, and Baroque Music
Ensemble. She is also an alumna of the Florida State University College of Music, where she completed both a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting and a Bachelor of Music Education degree. While at FSU, Dee studied conducting with Alexander
Jiménez, choral conducting with André Thomas, and violin with Corinne Stillwell. Her conducting positions at FSU included founding music director and conductor of the Campus Orchestra, a string orchestra geared toward non-music majors from across
the university community. Her time at FSU also included serving as both assistant conductor and an orchestral violinist for the University Symphony Orchestra’s 2013 recording of Ernő Dohnanyi’s Symphony No. 2 and Two Songs (world premiere recording)
on the Naxos label.
In addition to her formal studies, Dee has attended conducting workshops and festivals at such institutions as the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestral Musicians, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Royal Northern College
of Music in Manchester, UK. A consistent advocate for contemporary music, Dee has performed and premiered numerous works by living composers. In particular, she is a vigorous champion of the works of her husband, composer Roger Zare.