Bio

A native to South Carolina and graduate of College of Charleston with a B.A. in Music, pianist Jordan Alexander resides in Mount Pleasant where he is an active teacher, composer and participant in Charleston's eclectic musical atmosphere. Jordan began to play piano at the age of five and began formal study of the piano at the age of seven with Wes Revels — later to also seriously study the guitar and viola, playing in various ensembles in and around Charlotte, NC. Jordan studied composition at College of Charleston under the direction of Dr. David Maves, Dr. Trevor Weston, and Dr. Edward Hart. He has also studied interactive scoring for video games under composer Michael Sweet through the Berklee College of Music. He studied classical piano under the direction of Dr. Douglas Ashley, himself a student of the great Maria Curcio. Other principle teachers have been Dr. Irina Pevzner and Dr. Paolo André Gualdi. In 2009, Jordan was a participant in the Grumo Festival in Grumo Appula, Italy, and a 2011 alumnus of the Brevard Music Center summer festival in North Carolina. A well known multi-instrumentalist who is comfortable across many genres of music, Jordan teaches not only rigorous training in classical piano, but is also equally acclaimed for guitar instruction, composition, digital audio engineering, and a growing army of songwriting students and composers. He has himself composed large numbers of commercial compositions for both video and radio advertisements. His students have gone on to win full scholarships at prestigious musical institutions, record in professional music studios, and perform extensively in local venues in the Charleston area.


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.