Alex began his 40-year career in opera as a repetiteur at WNO and shortly after that was appointed Assistant Chorusmaster at ENO by Mark Elder. He began conducting operas professionally at Chelmsford Opera Group with La Gioconda and La Bohème and after three years at ENO joined the State Opera of South Australia (SOSA) as Assistant Conductor; three months later he took over as Music Director. He conducted many operas for SOSA as well as symphony concerts and radio recordings with the ABC (Adelaide) Symphony Orchestra. After three highly successful years, he came back to the UK and worked on the music staff of Kiel opera in Germany for a year before rejoining ENO. He began conducting operas there in 1990 and by 2003, when he left to develop his freelance career, he had conducted well over 130 performances with ENO across a very broad repertoire spectrum, including five of Wagner’s operas.

In 2000 he began conducting abroad with Il Trovatore, The Pearl Fishers, and Tosca at Opera Queensland and another Tosca at New Zealand Opera. He also made his Covent Garden debut conducting a performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet at short notice with the Royal Ballet (RB). This led to tours with the RB to Australia, Russia – where he conducted the Bolshoi and Maryinsky orchestras in Swan Lake and several other ballets – and at the Met in New York, as well as further performances at Covent Garden including Swan Lake and Prodigal Son. He was invited to conduct Nutcracker for ENB in 2004 and since then has regularly conducted all the big ballets for them on tour and in their regular London winter seasons. After working frequently with her at the RB he was invited by ballet superstar Sylvie Guillem to conduct for her on tours to Japan and China.

In 2014 he was invited by the Vienna State Opera to conduct the premiere of their new production of Swan Lake. This was televised and also made into a commercial DVD by Unitel Classica. He returned to the Staatsoper regularly for the next three years conducting performances of both Swan Lake and the triple bill Thoss / Wheeldon / Robbins.

He has also conducted Prokofiev’s Cinderella at Gothenburg and Skuggspel, a delightful one-act opera by Hans Gefors, in Malmö, as well as performances of Tannhäuser at the Sydney Opera House. In September 2023 he will premiere Lisa Logan’s new full-length opera Brontë for the Grimeborne festival at the Arcola. Alex works as a regular guest coach at NOS, the Guildhall School of Music and the Jette Parker Young Artists programme at the Royal Opera.