Sitka Music Festival Director Gets National Honor

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Category: News

Created on Wednesday, 08 January 2025 14:44

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff
    Alex Serio, executive director of the Sitka Music Festival, has been named by a national music organization as one of the top 30 music professionals of the year.
    Musical America Worldwide announced the award today, honoring Serio among the “Top 30” musicians, arts administrators and education specialists “who keep this business not only up and running but charging ahead.”

Alex Serio. (Photo Provided)

    “In a business based on the artistic gifts of performers, these are the people who present, promote, and nurture those gifts,” Musical America Worldwide said.
    The Sitka Music Festival board and Artistic Director Zuill Bailey congratulated Serio for the honor in a Musical America Worldwide ad, thanking him for his “outstanding leadership and dedication to our mission: delivering the finest classical music experience in Alaska through performance and education.”
    Serio, 40, said he was honored to have been recognized for such a prestigious award, and thankful for the work the organization has been able to achieve, with the help of “friends of the festival.”
    “I’m grateful to work in such a beautiful location, and to make world-class classical music accessible to rural communities in Southeast Alaska, as well as the whole state,” he said today.   
    Besides his role as executive director of the more than 50-year-old festival, Serio teaches trumpet in Philadelphia and formerly was director of a branch of the Philadelphia Settlement Music School.
    Sitka Music Festival was founded in 1972 by Paul Rosenthal, a student of famed violinist Jascha Heifetz. Cellist Zuill Bailey succeeded Rosenthal as artistic director in 2011, and Serio became festival executive director in 2022.
    In the announcement, Serio noted the expansion of the festival with a three-week Cello Seminar, and a partnership with Sitka Jazz Week. This winter the organization will send the award-winning Galvin Cello Quartet on a 1,200-mile Alaskan tour with performances in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Wasilla and Sitka.
    “We try to put classical music in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect it,” Serio said, noting the numerous performances in Sitka cafes, bars, and other local businesses. “Zuill played the complete Bach Cello Suites on a street downtown during Halloween one year. We put candy in his cello case to hand out to the kids.”
    Serio told the publication that as an administrator and teacher, he is passionate about reaching more people and making the classical music art form more accessible.
    “People come to our concerts in their Xtratufs,” Serio said. “Some people even come in their fishing gear. Some people dress up. It’s really a very accessible kind of environment. For Sitka and Ketchikan to hear chamber concerts with Grammy-winning artists, it’s really incredible.”