Alex Peh

I was six-years old when I moved to New York City from Kuala Lumpur, Maylaysia with my family. I began taking lessons with Mrs. Lisa Grad, who taught me how to shape a phrase using my open finger tips to sculpt the sound like a piece of clay. I remember how she related everything to the nautilus shell, its spiraling shape was a metaphor for proportion, dynamic shaping, the shape of the hand, the expansion and contraction of the body, and the overtone series...

 

I am a pianist that collaborates with musicians globally in search of shared resonances that emerge from friendship and connection. Empowered by my 2021 Fulbright Global Scholar and 2019 Asian Cultural Council fellowships, I have collaborated with some incredible musicians; Claire Chase, Susie Ibarra, Anna Clyne, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Tyshawn Sorey, U Yee Nwe, U Thet Oo, Ne Myo Aung, Hafez Modirzadeh, Ramin Zoufonoun, Amir Etemadzadeh, Senem Pirler, and Phyllis Chen. My work has been presented throughout the United States in venues such as Carnegie Zankel Hall, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Roulette Intermedium, National Sawdust, BRIC, Asia Society, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. 

 

I am part of Talking Gong, an improvising trio with percussionist, Susie Ibarra and flutist, Claire Chase. We released our debut album in 2019, Talking Gong, on New Focus Recordings available on all major streaming platforms. Our trio has performed at Public Theater, Roulette Intermedium, and BRIC in New York City. We performed the world premiere of Sky Islands, a new piece for trio and string quartet at the Asia Society NYC in June 2023 and will perform this work at the Ojai Festival 2025 with the JACK quartet. The premiere recording of Sky Islands will be released in the summer of 2025. 

 

Talking Gong  trio performed Pauline Oliveros' The Witness at Carnegie Hall as part of a major celebration of her work, and participated in a "A Day of Listening" that brought kids and parents on stage in a participatory day of music making centered around the text scores of Pauline Oliveros. 

​

I seek out pianistic practices that fall outside of the Western European classical tradition. I've travelled to Yangon, Myanmar to study Burmese Sandaya piano, from master pianist Dr. U Yee Nwe. I started my studies in Sandaya from Kyaw Kyaw Naing, an internationally-acclaimed percussionist, and leader of the national Saing Waing orchestra, the classical percussion and gong orchestra of Myanmar. We created a Burmese Saing Waing ensemble, comprising students, faculty and community members at SUNY New Paltz and made our debut performance at Roulette Intermedium, New York City, performing a new composition that Kyaw Kyaw Naing composed for the group entitled Growing Rhythm.  Our concert at SUNY New Paltz was sold out! Over 600 people from our small town wanted to hear Burmese Saing Waing!

 

In 2021 I received a Fulbright Global Scholar fellowship that allowed me to connect with Greek pianist and musicologist Nikos Ordoulidis in Naoussa, Greece; Burmese pianist Ne Myo Aung in Bangkok, Thailand and Pooyan Azadeh in Halle, Germany. Together we created a new album of piano music, Attune, on Habitat Sounds, and a companion ethnographic film Intermittent Attunement in collaboration with Dr. Lauren Meeker, Alyson Hummer and Madelyn Colonna. Excerpts of the film and album were premiered at National Sawdust, Brooklyn NYC. Intermittent Attunement was selected for screening by the Ethnografilm festival in Paris, France at the Club D’Etoile.  

 

I have received numerous grants to support my work such as Arts Midhudson, New York State Council of the Arts Grant, and New Music USA. Notably, I received a National Endowment for the Arts project grant that funded new compositions in afro/asian tuning systems for the piano by Ramin Zoufonoun and Hafez Modirzadeh.  

 

I received my musical training from Indiana and Northwestern Universities where I have been lucky to work with some of the best performers and mentors in the classical music world. I learned from Arnaldo Cohen, Menahem Pressler, Sylvia Wang and Evelyne Brancart. I attended the Banff, Aspen and Tanglewood music festivals where I worked with Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, Claude Frank, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, and Peter Serkin. I performed Stravinsky’s Les Noces under the baton of Charles Dutoit and the Tanglewood Festival Choir.  Currently I am an associate professor of piano at SUNY New Paltz,.

​

​