Bio
Alexander Tovar is a composer with a BM in Music Composition from USC. He's worked for artists such as Philip Glass, Gustavo Dudamel, Van Dyke Parks, Nico Muhly, and Elton John. His music has been played and performed all over the world including at the Cannes Film Festival and winning Best Score at the Milan Film Festival Awards.
Alexander Tovar was born in 1984 in Los Angeles to a musical family. By age 10, he had written his first opera and soon began formal training in piano, trumpet, and guitar.
He attended Alexander Hamilton High School playing trumpet in the prestigious jazz band. By his senior year he had written a piece for full orchestra, which caught the attention of Robert Kraft, the current president of Fox Music. Mr. Kraft introduced Alexander to Philip Glass, who asked him to come work for him in New York City.
Fresh out of high school, Alexander moved to New York City to work for Philip Glass and Nico Muhly. Later, he returned to Los Angeles studying philosophy at PCC and then transferring to the University of Southern California getting his B.M. in music composition. In college, his piece, Eudaemonia, was selected on the New Music for Orchestra concert, conducted by Donald Crockett and broadcasted live on 91.5 KUSC.
After college, Alexander wrote a piece for Gustavo Dudamel that was performed live in front of Disney Hall as part of the inaugural gala event welcoming the Maestro to Los Angeles.
In 2010, Alexander started working for Van Dyke Parks. They worked on an Elton John and Leon Russell album, entitled, The Union produced by T-Bone Burnett. In 2010, Tovar’s original score to the Crown Prince of Heaven premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Tovar began writing his first play, a musical farce entitled Mr. Genius with music by his father, Gilbert Tovar. He and his father collaborated on his life's work, a full scale opera/musical entitled Much Ado About Rosey. After the album, Alexander began writing, directing, editing, acting, and scoring his own original feature length films. His first endevour was, Nothing in Los Angeles (2013), a love letter to Los Angeles; shot on a shoe string budget and went on to premiere at many important festivals including the prestigious Cinequest. The next year he wrote, directed, acted, and scored his second film, Show Business (2015); a screwball romantic comedy that premiered at many notable festivals including the Newport Beach Film Festival (produced by Bonnie Hargett). He won best score for Show Business at the Milano International Film Festival Awards.
In 2016, Tovar acted in The Relationtrip, which premiered at 2017 SXSW Film Festival.
He teaches music and film to adults with disabilities at Performing Arts Studio West in Inglewood, CA. To view his classes, click here.
In 2023, Tovar released Madrigals and Sinfonietta. The 3 Madrigals are scored for solo voice, strings, woodwinds, harp, percussion, steel drums, cimbalom, dulcimer, balalaika (Russian string instrument) gangsa (a Balinese metallophone) and 3 Ondiolines (1940s French synthesizers). The Sinfonietta (in 5 movements) is scored for flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, celesta, glockenspiel, harp, brushes, bass, strings and bass.
In 2023, Tovar composed his first symphony (Symphony No. 1) for full orchestra including a Spanish Guitar, Guitarrón, and solo soprano.
His first string quartet, String Quartet No. 1 was completed in fall of 2023. Shortly after, "Man with a Movie Camera," scored for Piano Quintet was completed and performed at a sold out show at the The Cat’s Crawl in East Hollywood in March. 2024.
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