Alexander Richard Straus-Fausto is known for his exhilarating, clean, colorful, virtuosic, sensitive, and innovative organ performances. He has a broad repertoire of music, dating from early fifteenth-century keyboard music to contemporary organ repertoire. He is a member of The Diapason’s “20 under 30 Class of 2023,” which recognizes the most talented young artists under the age of 30 who have made significant contributions to the fields of organ performance, harpsichord, and church music. His mission is to sell the organ to a much wider audience. He is currently assistant organist at St. George's Cathedral in Kingston Ontario. 

He has given celebrated performances in several esteemed venues across England, France, the United States and Canada, including Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, La Madeleine in Paris, Woolsey Hall at Yale (New Haven, CT), Washington National Cathedral (Washington, DC), Trinity Chruch (Boston MA), Mechanics Hall (Worcester, MA), Princeton University Chapel (Princeton, NJ), Trinity Church Wall Street (New York, NY), Maison Symphonique (Montreal, QC), Basilica National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (Washington, DC), The Cathedral Church of St. James (Toronto, ON), Kings Lynn Minster/St. Margaret's Church (Norfolk, UK), St. Edmundsbury Cathedral (Bury St. Edmunds, UK), Great St. Mary's (Cambridge, UK), St. Paul's Bloor Street (Toronto, ON) and Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica (Quebec, QC).  Through the assistance of a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, he completed a recital tour in the summer of 2019, performing in major Churches and Cathedrals in Great Britain. Thank to the Centennial Millennium Fund of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, Alexander co-founded Festiv'Orgue in Montreal, which succeeded in bringing a new audience to the organ. He co-produced several concerts in this series, using some of the largest downtown churches' historic organs, focusing on innovative concerts of arrangements of rock, pop, and Christmas themes. 

Alexander utilizes a registrationally diverse approach to the organ, capitalizing on the colors of each instrument and the acoustics of the space. He is known for his imaginative outlook and creative programming, heavy on transcriptions and romantic/symphonic organ repertoire. Alexander is passionate about adapting to any instrument, from Baroque Tracker instruments to Orchestral Symphonic organs. His programs typically feature some of the most challenging virtuosic pieces ever written with a nearly flawless technical prowess to serve the composer's intentions and to recreate an orchestra. 
 
A graduate of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Yale School of Music as well as McGill University Schulich School of Music, Alexander has been able to study with some of the most celebrated pedagogues in the world. He enjoyed a celebrated recital career since a teenager. At the early age of 19, he was appointed titular organist of the acclaimed L'église du Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus, home of Canada's third largest organ, of which he adopted the symphonic style and a passion for the art of transcription. 

Straus-Fausto's teachers include James David Christie, Hans-Ola Ericsson, Martin Jean, Alcee Chriss, Jonathan Oldengarm and Christian Lane. He will be a competitor in the Toulouse International Organ Comeptition in the fall of 2024. 

2023 highlights include performances at Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan, NY; Basilica National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.; The Princeton University Chapel, and the closing concert of the MusOrgue Festival of the Organ at St. James United Church, Montreal (a program of music written by women and Canadians). In 2023, he was also a semifinalist in The Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, and a participant in Wesleyan University’s celebration of Wagner’s music transcribed for the organ. 

2024 highlights include an all Bach Concert as part of the Peace Memorial Concert Series at First Presbyterian in Clearwater Florida, and performances at Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Coventry Cathedral and La Madeleine in Paris, as well as the dedication for a new organ at St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Toronto. 


"Alexander Straus-Fausto took an assured, whimsical approach to the D Major Prelude and Fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 874), each measure introducing some fresh orchestral color or percussion"
(Jonathan Ambrosino, Choir and Organ).                           


Alexander is represented by Seven Eight Artists.
 
 
 



 



Photo by Tam Lan Troung