BIOGRAPHY

Conductor, arranger, composer, singer, guitarist and teacher. Born in Bonn, Germany.

„My mother still likes to tell me stories about me singing while walking through the streets as early as I could walk.“

Alexander Naji studied music at the Cologne University of Music (M.A. equivalent). Since being a student, he gave many music performances in various genres including classic, jazz, and music comedy (CD production). This includes singing as a soloist, conducting choirs and orchestras, playing the viola, guitar or keyboards.

His voice teacher at the University of Music was Prof. Arthur Janzen. Besides conducting lessons at the University, his major influence as a conductor came from studies with Celso Antunes (currently chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir “Groot Omroepkoor” and professor for Choral Conducting at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève). In 2009 he has joined the Sarteano Chamber Choral Workshop in Sarteano  as a full conductor under the guidance of Simon Carrington (formerly King’s Singers, professor emeritus of choral conducting, Yale University). In 2010 he studied further orchestral conducting at the Conductors’ Academy Workshop (with Jonathan Brett) in Estonia. Alexander Naji also took lessens in phonetics at the University of Bonn.

Since 2005 he has been the conductor of the Kantorei Tokyo Yokohama, a choir of the German-speaking churches in Tokyo, Kreuzkirche and St. Michael. In 2008 he started working with the Kammerchor (chamber choir) St. Cecilia Tokyo, whose members are voice students from the Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku). His music teaching experiences range from voice and conducting lessons to pronunciation and interpretation lessons of Lieder and arias, particularly for singers whose mother tongue is a non-Western language.

While being regarded as a conductor and teacher mostly, Alexander Naji is also a passionate jazz musician - arranging, playing the guitar and above all singing. He is regularly performing in the Tokyo area.

Alexander Naji is currently working as a music and physics teacher at the German School Tokyo Yokohama.

He is residing in Yokohama, Japan, together with his wife.