ALEXANDER FRIEDHOFF was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1980, and moved at age seven to Madrid, Spain. He started cello lessons when he was ten with his father, and came to the United States in 1998. He studied under Janos Starker at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington for four years, and during the last year became teaching assistant to Mr. Starker. After earning a Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University, Alexander Friedhoff moved to Houston, where he recently finished his second year of study under Lynn Harrell as a masters student at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

During his time in Bloomington, Indiana, Mr. Friedhoff also studied baroque cello and played in the Indiana University Baroque Orchestra under the guidance of Stanley Ritchie at the Early Music Institute of Indiana University.

In Bloomington and Houston, Mr. Friedhoff studied chamber music with Emilie Naoumoff, Atar Arad, Tuval Yaron, Paul Bliss, Menahem Pressler, Paul Ellison, Norman Fischer, and Jon Kimura Parker. He has also played in master classes for Ralph Kirschbaum, Bernard Greenhouse, Maria Kliegel, and Yo-Yo Ma, and studied in courses with Timothy Eddy, Eric Kim, Richard Aaron, Thomas Grossenbacher, Paul Katz, Ronald Leonard, Gregor Horsch and Philippe Muller.

He has won first prize in the national Spanish cello competitions of Zaragoza and Manresa, the Musicorda Festival Concerto Competition, and was a winner of the string division of the Young Texas Artist Competition. He has performed recitals throughout the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina. Among these were recitals at the March Foundation in Madrid, the National Academy of Music at the University of Rio de Janeiro, and a performance of the complete unaccompanied Bach cello suites at the Teatro del Libertador San Martin of Cordoba, in Argentina.

Mr. Friedhoff was awarded the Aspen Music Festival Time Warner Fellowship, and attended the festival during the summers of 2001, 2002, and 2003. He has also attended the Holland Music Sessions, Margess International of Switzerland, Music Academy of the West, and the Kronberg Cello Festival.

Alexander Friedhoff was born in a family of musicians - his father and uncle were cellists with the Royal Concertgebouw and Zurich Tonhalle orchestras, and his mother a soprano with the Amsterdam Opera. Besides fluency in Dutch, Spanish, English, and French, he has carried out extensively daily self-directed study of German for over five years, and Japanese for over three years. In 2000, Mr. Friedhoff earned a two year Business Certificate from Indiana University Kelley School of Business.