Paul Alexander

Paul Alexander is a Vancouver-based composer, saxophonist, and music educator whose work bridges world music, classical composition, and film. Known for a dynamic musical language that fuses rhythmic and lyrical elements, his compositions have been performed internationally in Vancouver, Toronto, Havana, Harare, and New York — his Cuban-influenced string works were praised by The New York Times. Alongside composing for the concert stage, Paul’s orchestration credits include award-winning Canadian films such as Human Cargo, Murder Unveiled, and The French Guy. He also collaborates extensively in the dance world, with original music for Bharata Natyam performances. Paul publishes his works through New Traditions Media.

As the 2025 Jeffrey Rubinoff Artist-Composer in Residence, Paul Alexander’s exploratory practice culminated in the composition of his new string quartet work “Galatea.” During this residency, Alexander studied and interacted with Jeffrey’s musically inspired Series 1 works, playing the sculptures to explore their sonic qualities. This experience became a central inspiration of this work. The environment of the park also proved a creative impetus for “Galatea.” The ecological identity of the park itself, the local community, as well as the relationship between the sculpture park and its wildlife inhabitants were all considerable influences on Alexander’s creative practice.

“Galatea” was written as a response to Jeffrey Rubinoff’s sculptural works – to his ideas about art, art history, and human evolution. Rubinoff’s assertions on the fundamentals of artistic practice, namely that “art is a form of knowledge” with the spiritual significance of being the “map of the human soul,” dictated Alexander’s compositional project. “Art is an act of will in accordance with a mature conscience,” Rubinoff writes, drawing a distinction between art history as it is narrativized by scholars and that which is enacted by the artists themselves.

The July 2025 Canadian premiere performances of “Galatea” at the JRSP included two versions of the work: both the strictly string quartet composition, and the alternate version accompanied by Peruvian hand-crafted ceramic instruments. These wind instruments imitate both the sounds and appearances of birds and animals. The design origins of “huacos silbadores” or whistling vessels reside in pre-Columbian Peruvian innovation dating back over 3,000 years. Peruvian musicologist and instrument maker José Vitancio Umeres constructed the whistling vessels that were played in this JRSP performance by members of the local Hornby Island community – amateur musicians collaborating with the Borealis String Quartet to explore Alexander’s vision in conjunction with Jeffrey Rubinoff’s.