Alexander Jiménez

Dr. Alexander Jiménez serves as Professor of Conducting, Director of Orchestral Activities, and String Area Coordinator at The Florida State University College of Music. Dr. Jiménez has recorded on the Naxos, Navona, Neos, Canadian Broadcasting Ovation, and Mark labels. Deeply committed to music by living composers, Dr. Jiménez has enjoyed fruitful and long-term collaborations with such eminent composers as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the late Ladisalv Kubik, Anthony Iannaccone, Krzysztof Penderecki, Martin Bresnick, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Harold Schiffman, Louis Andriessen, and Georg Friedrich Haas. Active as a guest conductor, he has conducted extensively in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, including appearances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Brno Philharmonic (Czech Republic) and the Israel Netanya Chamber Orchestra. Equally comfortable in the professional and educational arenas, Dr. Jiménez is also active conducting regional and state honor orchestras, including the all-state orchestras of Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Montana, Kentucky, and Georgia, as well as the NAfME (formerly MENC) All-Eastern Honor Orchestra in 2009.

Under his direction, the FSU orchestral studies program has expanded and been recognized as one of the leading orchestral studies programs in the country. The University Symphony Orchestra has appeared as a featured orchestra for the College Orchestra Directors National Conference and the American String Teachers Association National Conference, and the University Philharmonia has performed at the Southeast Conference of the Music Educators National Conference and the College Orchestra Directors Association National Conference in 2023. The national PBS broadcast of Zwilich’s Peanuts’ Gallery featuring the University Symphony Orchestra was named outstanding performance of 2007 by the National Educational Television Association.

Dr. Jiménez’s former students can be found throughout the world conducting in academic institutions, youth orchestras, and professional orchestra, including the National Tour of Les Miserables, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Opera, the Merola Opera Program of the San Francisco Opera, The Yerevan State Opera, Appalachian State University, Indiana University, the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Ithaca College, Whitman College, and Carthage College.

A busy adjudicator, he serves as international ambassador for the European Festival of Music for Young People in Belgium and as a frequent adjudicator/clinician for Festival Disney. At FSU, Dr. Jiménez has been the recipient of University Teaching Awards in 2006 and 2018, The Transformation Through Teaching Award, and the Guardian of the Flame Award which is given to an outstanding faculty mentor. At the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan, Dr. Jiménez serves as a principal conductor of the Festival Orchestra and as artistic director. Dr. Jiménez is a past president of the College Orchestra Directors Association and served as music director of the Tallahassee Youth Orchestras from 2000-2017.