Alexander Pauk

Alexander Peter Pauk

Alexander Peter Pauk, composer, conductor (b at Toronto 4 Oct 1945). As a conductor, Pauk has been a leading exponent of new music in Canada since graduating from the University of Toronto in 1971, where he was a co-founder of the contemporary music collective Array (now ArrayMusic). After further studies in Europe and Japan, Pauk spent 5 years in Vancouver, where he helped establish the new music group Days, Months and Years to Come and was named Vancouver's Musician of the Year in 1975. He returned to Toronto in 1980 and 3 years later founded the Esprit Orchestra, Canada's only orchestra devoted entirely to contemporary repertoire.

In 1984 Alex Pauk served as the co-chair of the World Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music, held in Toronto and Montréal that year. In addition to his ongoing commitment as conductor of the Esprit Orchestra, he also served as Music Director of the Satori Festival of New Music in Winnipeg in 1986 and of R. Murray Schafer's wilderness opera Princess of the Stars in 1997.

As a composer, Pauk has written some 3 dozen works, with commissions from some of Canada's most important institutions including the CBC, New Music Concerts, the Vancouver New Music Society and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He is also active as a composer for film, television, radio and music theatre. Recent motion picture scores, co-written with his wife, Alexina Louie, include the internationally acclaimed films Last Night by Don McKellar and Jeremy Podeswa's The Five Senses.