Bio

A native of South Carolina, Jordan Alexander holds a B.A. in Music from the College of Charleston, where he studied both music composition and piano. His primary mentor was Dr. Douglas Ashley, himself a protégé of Artur Schnabel’s last student, Maria Curcio. Jordan has participated in the Grumo Festival in Italy in 2009 and was an alumnus of the Brevard Music Center in 2011. Jordan also studied harpsichord and organ under Dr. Julia Harlow and studied music composition under the direction of Dr. David Maves, Dr. Trevor Weston, and Dr. Edward Hart. He has also studied piano under the guidance of Paolo André Gualdi, Irina Pevzner, and Hartmut Sauer as well as participated in masterclasses under Walter Hautzig and John O’Conor. Jordan is currently a piano coaching mentor for the classical music education streaming service tonebase.

During his undergraduate years, Jordan was in constant demand tutoring for all music theory courses available at the College of Charleston through the college’s Center for Student Learning. It became a common occurrence for students to knock on his practice room door for advice on a wide range of musical topics. This was where he first discovered his love for teaching and knack for explaining complex musical subjects.

A desire to know as much as possible about the inner mechanics of the piano led him to rebuild his own piano under the direction of local piano technician John Eisenhart in 2006. The mentorship, advice, and inspiration from this experience has enabled Jordan to maintain his “menagerie” of studio instruments ranging from harpsichords, clavichords, and pianos.

As a genuine multi-instrumentalist with a wide experience across many genres, Jordan has expertise not only on the piano, but also on the harpsichord, viola, and guitar. His musical experience has encompassed everything from classical, jazz, songwriting, musical theatre, formal composition, commercial composition, to implementation of interactive media for video games.

A natural polymath at heart and being well-versed in subjects of philosophy, education, and music, Jordan is continually sought after as a teacher capable of diagnosing and posing creative solutions for all kinds of musical situations.


Teaching Philosophy

Music study is an all-encompassing activity. It consists not of learning one song after another, but of achieving fluency in a universal language -- through careful practice of reading, playing, writing, listening, and thinking, one crafts one's own personal store of understanding, to be used and applied in every field. My students don't learn to simply play a piece, but learn the inner workings of the language itself. This encompasses theory, improvisation, composing, and philosophy, not simply technique. Just like any language, speaking is only one facet -- learning the physical process of speaking words doesn't have much value -- it's understanding that is key. My students learn about the learning process itself -- things that are readily applied to studying, problem solving, and motivation, to name a few. The result of study culminates with an active mind, capable of thinking, problem solving, and working for a long-range goal. The result of all of this is pride. The pieces one learns along the way are simply the rewards of the process.