Alexei Galea Cavallazzi was born in 1979. He attended the Purcell Music School in London (1993- 1997) where he studied violin and piano. After completing school Alexei continued his violin studies at the Royal College of Music in London (1998) for one year whilst deferring his Oxford entry. He then read music at Pembroke College, Oxford where he was active as a chamber performer, orchestral player as well as taking up organ and also played a number of piano concertos with orchestra. Alexei graduated from the University of Oxford in 2002. From 2002 – 2008 he studied at the Moscow state conservatoire under the tutorship of the legendary pianist Victor Merzhanov and chamber music with Alexander Rudin. He was generously supported by the Janatha Stubbs Foundation. After graduating from the Moscow State Conservatory Alexei studied conducting with Steffen Leissner in Dresden.
Alexei is a versatile musician. He has played piano concertos with orchestras in the U.K, Ukraine and Russia. His conducting career has taken him to Malta, Italy, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and other countries. He has recorded symphonic and chamber works by Maltese composers as well as the Classics for Turkish television, Georgian Television and for the PBS in Malta. Alexei taught piano at the Malta school of Music from 2010 to 2014.
World-class orchestras conducted by Alexei include the Georgian sinfonietta, Tbilisi and the Academic Sbymphonic orchestra of the Capella in St Petersburg. Both these orchestras performed in Malta with Alexei (at Republic Hall MCC) as well as performed with Alexei in their own halls in their respective countries. Alexei’s repertoire as a conductor includes Maltese music by Chris Muscat, Jes Grixti, Joseph Vella, Mariella Cassar and others as well as great symphonic works by Bruckner, Nielsen, Beethoven, Brahms and the most popular concertos by Bach, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mendelsohn and others. Alexei has vast experience in accompanying concertos with orchestra and has worked with many world class soloists including Gaik Kazazian, Karen Shahgaldian -violin, Amdrei Shibko -Piano, Fedor Rudin -violin and Arkadi Zenziper -piano, Alexander Rudin cello amongst others. He has conducted in many Russian cities including St Petersburg, Kislovodsk, Petrozavodsk, Tumen, Cheliabinsk etc. He has collaborated with the European foundation for the support of culture on more than one occasion. Alexei has a great interest in baroque music and has conducted many works by Bach and Vivaldi.
Alexei has served as a member of jury in various piano competitions such as in Sumy ,Ukraine, Slobozhanska fantasia, in Cologne, Germany Clavicologne and in Berlin, Germany just to mention a few. He has also been active in producing educational concerts for children at MCC.
He founded the Valletta Piano festival in Malta in 2010 which gave young pianists the opportunity of studying repertoire works with Yuri Didenko from the Moscow Conservatoire free of charge and has been active in promoting Maltese talent abroad. He invited Bernice Sammut Attard to play the Grieg piano concerto in Kislovodsk, Russia and has worked with sopranos Marvic Baldacchino and Christine Dalli in Italy as well as in Malta. In 2015 the Russian parliament awarded Alexei the prestigious “Sovet Federazii” a medal awarded for contribution towards Culture. From 2014 to 2019 Alexei was a board director at the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.
Alexei is the music Director at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valleta, Malta. He is currently video recording the great organ works of J.S. Bach for organ on historic instruments in Germany and Holland for the PBS in Malta. The material may be found on youtube.