Alexandra Grabarchuk

Alexandra Grabarchuk, PhD, is a Ukrainian-born conductor and musicologist. She received her doctorate from UCLA in 2015, supported by an Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50 Dissertation Fellowship Award and a UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship. Her most recent publications include an article in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Progressive Rock, as well as numerous studies of 1970s Soviet popular music. In addition to teaching and performing in the Los Angeles area, she has also worked as a score reader for the Metropolitan Opera’s LA-based live HD broadcast team since 2014.

curriculum vitae

Alex is the current Artistic Director & Conductor of the San Gabriel Valley Choral Company, as well as the Director of Choral Activities at Whittier College. She has also served as co-conductor and administrative facilitator of the Contemporary Choral Collective of Los Angeles (C3LA). In recent years, Alex has participated in the Norfolk Chamber Choir and Choral Conducting Workshop, The Dallas Opera’s Institute for Women Conductors, and the Saskatchewan Orchestral Association’s International Conducting Workshop. She has studied with renowned conductors Donald Neuen and Simon Carrington.

Alex was born to lead an ensemble of this sort… Musically, socially, and intellectually, it was truly a privilege to sing in the EME this year.

An effective communicator who succeeds in creating a rehearsal space that is simultaneously fun and enjoyable, without sacrificing a single degree of musicality.

Alex is an outstanding director. She leads an organized rehearsal, conducts clearly and expressively, and has great advice to give on everything from vocal technique to musical interpretation.

Simultaneously a caring and commanding director. Able to create an atmosphere where musicians learn, buckle down and get to work, but also enjoy themselves, have fun, and enjoy camaraderie.

Over the last decade, Alex has developed extensive vocal experience, from performing Carmina Burana on a Greek island with 2,000 other singers in the Festival of the Aegean to embodying one half of duo Guitaria with contemporary composer/guitarist Peter Yates. She also sings Bulgarian, Georgian, and other types of folk music from Eastern Europe. Alex's favorite type of vocal performance remains music written before 1650, as can be seen through her involvement with early music groups such as Jouyssance and the UCLA Early Music Ensemble.

Having received a thorough education in both piano performance and music theory, Alex is an ardent pianist who loves keyboards of all sorts, as can be witnessed by her work with the pianoforte, baroque organ, and harpsichord. She has done some transcription work as well, expressively realizing Leo Brouwer's guitar etudes on the piano. Alex has also gigged as a rehearsal and performance choral accompanist around the Los Angeles area, playing for such groups as the UCLA Chorus, American Lutheran Church in Burbank, and Cantate Hominem Men's Choir.

Alex currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Music at Whittier College in Southern California, where she directs the choral program and teaches music courses. She has previously served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Choral Direction & Musicology at Earlham College, and has held adjunct positions at UCLA, Chapman University, Chaffey College, Mt. SAC, and the Claremont University Consortium. Her teaching experience has encompassed working with diverse student populations from undergraduates to senior citizens, with glowing reviews from students and fellow faculty observers alike. Her teaching portfolio includes courses in musicology, music history, and piano & vocal performance.

teaching statement

Finest GE professor I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting and taking a course with.

Ms. Grabarchuk gave superior lectures, well-integrated with media, and answered questions graciously and thoroughly...

Alex’s teaching style is one where open dialogue is encouraged and fostered not only among instructor and student but students with each other.

She is all you could ask for in a teacher.

Alex possesses a certain authority when teaching that makes students look up to her and trust her, and she shows a zeal for the material that brings it into a relatable, interesting, accessible light.

Fluent in Russian and trained as a linguist, Alex has previously done extensive work on translating unpublished Stravinsky correspondence for Tamara Levitz's PROSE-awarded 2012 book Modernist Mysteries: Perséphone. She has also developed an original Cyrillic-to-English transliteration system for multiple Russian-language projects, and has done proofing work for books published with Princeton and Oxford University Presses. Alex has also provided musicological consultation and editing for academic articles in publications such as Journal of Popular Music Studies. She is available for the following services:

Editing and proofreading text for academic, technical, and non-academic readership
Russian-to-English translation
English-to-Russian translation

Please e-mail shoora84@gmail.com to discuss your editing and translation needs.

Alexandra Grabarchuk went beyond the call of duty in her dedication to the many Russian translations she prepared for me behind the scenes; she became my Ukrainian ‘eyes’ and made it possible through her stunningly sensitive attunement to language for me to work with Russian sources.

– Dr. Tamara Levitz, Stravinsky and His World