Alex Orfaly (b. 1974) is a musician and composer living in the Bay Area of California. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Alex has been an active musician and composer from an early age. From 2013-2015 he served as acting principal timpani of the San Francisco Symphony and has been the timpanist for the Sun Valley Summer Symphony since 2007. Past positions as principal timpanist have included the Palau de Les Arts in Spain, the New World Symphony, and the Tucson Symphony.

Since graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Music he has performed with orchestras worldwide including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Radio France Philharmonic, and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. He is also a composer of a growing body of percussion pieces including his Concerto for Brass and Percussion and the Divertissement No. 2 for Timpani Soloist and Large Ensemble, both premiered by the New World Symphony. He has been a winner of the Percussive Arts Society International Composition Contest four times: in 2001 for Divertissement #1, in 2006 for Rhapsody #2, in 2010 for Improvvisatto Contrasto, and finally in 2015 for Copper Wired. In an on-going collaboration with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Alex has been commissioned to write works for the orchestra. The Mean Man’s March for solo xylophone and orchestra was premiered by the orchestra in 2010. In 2012 the orchestra commissioned and premiered Alex’s work for narrator and orchestra, Cowboy Bill. Continuing the collaboration, the piece Breaking Light for five percussionists and orchestra was premiered in the summer of 2017. His newest work Danzón Luna, for timpani and chamber ensemble, commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas, will be premiered by the New World Symphony in March 2021.

Website: www.LessonsOnCopper.com