Canadian-born Alexa Haynes-Pilon (DMA, USC) has quickly established herself in the early music scene, performing on baroque cello, viola da gamba, baroque bassoon and dulcian. Early Music America described Alexa as “a special artist with a brilliant future,” and Canada’s La Scena Musicale recently hailed her gamba playing as “well deserving to be compared with illustrious figures of the past; her virtuosic finger-work and full-bodied tone share commonalities with some of the great rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.” She is the principal cellist of both Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra and Opera Neo, and co-director and cellist/gambist of Musica Pacifica. She has performed with numerous American ensembles, including the American Bach Soloists, Washington Bach Consort, Cantata Collective, IN Series, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium San Diego, Burning River Baroque, Smithsonian Academy Orchestra, Opera Lafayette, and more.
Internationally, Alexa joined the Orchester Wiener Akademie as principal cello for a European tour of The Infernal Comedy with John Malkovich. She also joined the Wiener Akademie as principal cello in a performance at the Kirchklang festival with the Vienna Boys Choir in Salzkammergut, Austria. She recently played the viola da gamba solos with the Orchester Wiener Akademie for a performance of the St. Matthew Passion at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Alexa has collaborated with the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, Hungary, for a production of Mozart’s La Finta giardiniera. She joined the Hungarian State Opera again in 2025 for a production of Haydn’s Armida. She has also performed with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Increasingly in demand as a conductor and soloist, she has guest-directed and performed concertos with Musica Angelica and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra.
Alexa loves working with musicians in the community and has been on faculty at the Baroque and Recorder workshops held by the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS), and the Port Townsend Early Music, and Road Scholar Hidden Valley Workshops. She has been a guest conductor for the Orange County Recorder Society, the Southern California Recorder Society, the Central Coast Recorder Society, the Sacramento Recorder Society, the San Francisco Recorder Society and the Pacifica Viola da Gamba Society. She was a co-founder and co-director of Los Angeles Baroque (LAB), a community-based baroque orchestra in South Pasadena.
Recent recordings include American Bach Soloists, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen Sings Gluck, Handel, & Vivaldi, as well as Agostino Steffani duets on the Musica Omnia label titled Agostino Steffani: A son trés-humble service, Duets for Sophie Charlotte of Hanover under the direction of harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour. The most recent album, François Couperin’s Concert Royeaux with flautists, Stephen Schultz and Mindy Rosenfeld, and harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour was released in August 2021. Her recent recording with Beneath a Tree, which was recorded at Skywalker Ranch, will be released later this year. www.alexahaynespilon.com
