BIO
Born in Barcelona, Xavier Alern started in music self-taught at the age of 13 deeply influenced by the first creative stage of Mike Oldfield. He began his studies at the Taller de Músics de Barcelona and at the Escola Luthier d'Arts Musicals, where he had as guitar teachers Vicens Solsona, Arnaldur Arnarson, Fernando Rodríguez, William Waters and Àlex Garrobé.
He received the Honorary Award for the Middle Grade of Guitar from the Conservatory of Sabadell and obtained the Higher Grade Title for this instrument at the Conservatory of Alicante. He also graduated in professional sound and music production at the Center for Image Studies in Barcelona.
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He later received master classes from guitarists such as Zoran Dukic, Oscar Ghiglia, Carles Trepat, Xavier Coll, Nacho Rodes and Hopkinson Smith.
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Strongly interested in early music, he studied Renaissance and Baroque plucked strings at the Vila-Seca Conservatory.
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His humanistic concern led him to study Philosophy and History and Music Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). In 2010 he obtained a Master's degree in Musicology and in 2015 he received a Doctorate in History of Art and Musicology (PhD). The doctoral thesis deserved the Extraordinary Doctorate Award of 2015.
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Xavier Alern has a versatile personality that embraces different facets. As a teacher, he has worked in conservatories as the ESEM - Taller de Músics, the Superior Conservatory of the Liceu or the Conservatory of Music of the Pyrenees. He has also been associate professor of Musicology at the UAB for ten years. Alern is a researcher and performer, a contributor to popular music magazines and has been the director of his own Early Music Festival.
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In the last decade he has developed his concert activity around the music of the Renaissance and the Baroque, forming a duet with the prestigious lutenist William Waters and with his own formation, Fortuna d'un gran tempo, performing more than thirty concerts and collecting a great success with critics and the public. With Opus One he has performed at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, the Auditori de Girona and the Cartuja Center Cite in Seville.
Xavier Alern currently lives in the Pyrenees retired from teaching. In the silence of the mountains composes his first album, directs the Opus One project and organizes the first Baridà Music Festival.