BIOGRAPHY

Grace M. Alexander (b. 2001) is a professional modern and baroque violinist, arts administrator, and aspiring pedagogue currently based in Vancouver, BC. Her musical interests are primarily rooted in collaborative work with musicians and artists, but enjoys playing in ensembles of all kinds. Grace is a freelance orchestral player, chamber musician, private instructor, and recital artist in the greater Pacific Northwest area in the U.S. and Canada, as well as a substitute musician with various regional and professional orchestras in the area. She is a violinist of the Kermode String Quartet, based in Vancouver, BC. Grace actively performs in Duo Emersi with collaborator Will Rand, where they regularly commission new composers for recital programming and collaborate with storytellers, ecologists, and other artists.  

Grace began her Master of Music (M.Mus) degree studies at University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Music in fall 2024. She is a magna cum laude graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN with Bachelors of Music (B.M.) in Violin Performance. Her recent private teachers and mentors include Jasper Wood, Chloe Meyers, Ryan Davis (Radia), Mary Sokol-Brown, Bo Peng, Dr. Jonathan Girard, Charles Gray, Natsuki Kumagai, Anna Clift, Francesca Anderegg, Scott Anderson, Dr. Chung Park, and Steven Amundson. 

Grace is currently a rotating concertmaster/principal of the UBC Symphony Orchestra, West Coast Symphony, and Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra. She was formerly the concertmaster of the St. Olaf Orchestra. Grace held other various leadership roles within the St. Olaf Music Department. She was a former section player of Santa Monica Symphony under the direction of the late L.A. Philharmonic musician, Guido Lamell. As a baroque violinist, she has been a guest musician for Gallo Baroque Chamber Players in Vancouver, BC, and performs regularly in the Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Program at UBC. In 2025-26, she will be a guest musician in the Vetta Chamber Music concert series as a member of the mentorship program. 

She has attended summer festivals and institutes around North America and Europe, including Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Borromeo Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Við Djúpið Music Festival, and IU Jacobs String Teacher’s Pedagogy Institute. In Summer 2025, she will attend Kinhaven Young Artists Seminar (with Kermode Quartet), Bowdoin International Music Festival, and Domaine Forget International Music Festival, Chamber Orchestra. She will also perform at the 2025 Scheherazade Music Festival (with Duo Emersi). 

Grace recently won first-prize at the 2025 Friends of Chamber Music (Vancouver) Young Musicians Competition with the Kermode String Quartet. She is also a prize winner and finalist of national chamber music competitions such as the Saint Paul String Quartet Competition and Ladies Musical Club of Seattle Frances Walton Competition with the Høyde String Quartet. She was the winner of the 2022-23 Tour Soloist competition with the St. Olaf Orchestra, performing the Holst Double Violin Concerto with Owen Cromwell in nine venues around Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota in fall 2022. Grace also was a finalist for the 2022-23 St. Olaf Orchestra Concerto Competition. In 2020-21, she was third-prize winner of the Thursday Musical Young Artists Competition as a soloist. 

Grace has been hired for many public-facing opportunities and recording projects, including quartet and orchestra member of a “Weird Al” Yankovic Los Angeles concert, Rick Springfield’s “Orchestrating My Life” Los Angeles tour concert (including radio and television appearances), a Carol Burnett honorarium, jazz violin performance with Danilo Pérez, weddings, and more. Playing in the pit orchestra for various opera, musical productions, and the Arts for the Arts (AFTA) program has also broadened her musical experiences. 

As an arts administrator and musical leader, she co-founded and was the co-artistic director, along with her partner Samuel J. Ivory, of Synergy Musicians' Collective at St. Olaf College to promote collaborative, interdisciplinary, and innovative artistry in the collegiate setting. She is on the founding team and holds the Associate Director position at EarthStory, an organization focused on the intersection of storytelling, ecology, and the arts. Grace currently holds the positions of Co-Director of Operations for the International Cello Institute in Minnesota, USA, Development Assistant at the Við Djúpið Music Festival in Ísafjörður, Iceland, and she also works as a freelance grant-writer for organizations like FilAm Music Foundation, Grand Rapids Youth Choruses, and more.

Grace is extremely grateful to practice and perform on a 2023 Bronek Cison Violin (original owner), and an 1878 François Nicolas Voirin Bow (prev. owner, Guido Lamell).