A well-rounded musician immersed in the classical and romantic canon, Alexandra Eastley is principal bassoonist of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Previously, she had an active freelance career in Montreal where she held the second bassoon position in l’orchestre symphonique de Laval.
Alexandra has played with such ensembles as l’orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Les Violons du Roy, l’orchestre symphonique de Trois Rivieres and L’orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke. Alexandra is also an active chamber musician and has worked with the Toronto groups Musica Franca and the Aradia Ensemble and premiered the opera “A Chair in Love” by British composer John Metcalf with Montreal based wind quintet Pentaédre. In addition, she has premiered works for chamber orchestra as well as several for solo bassoon by American composer John B Hedges.
Alexandra completed her Masters Degree in solo bassoon performance at McGill University in 2006 where she studied with Stéphane Lévesque. She also studied with Nadina Mackie Jackson at the University of Toronto before completing her Bachelors degree with Bernard Garfield at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2004.
She has studied for three summers at the Banff Centre for the Arts and played principal and second bassoon in the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the National Orchestral Institute, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra for their tours of Europe and China.