Alex Liedtke joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Oboe in 2022 and is second oboe with the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, an annual ten-week summer festival in Chicago.
Prior to life in Toronto, Liedtke was a first-call freelance player in the Chicago area performing with nearly every orchestra in and around the region. He was acting/interim assistant principal oboe and English horn with the North Carolina Symphony for two seasons (2015–2017) and served as guest principal oboe for one season (2018) with the Chilean State Opera and Ballet Orchestra at Teatro Municipal in Santiago. Liedtke has won auditions for, and held positions with, seven different regional orchestras throughout his career, both in the Chicago area and in the southeast US where he lived after finishing his training.
Liedtke obtained his Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music where he studied with Elizabeth Camus, long-time second oboe of The Cleveland Orchestra. He thereafter studied extensively with Robin Driscoll, principal oboe of the Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet, and manufacturer of the Opus 1 “gouger”—a crucial tool oboe players use to turn cane into playable reeds. Liedtke took additional study with Carolyn Hove, English horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Liedtke is passionate about composing and arranging. Several new arrangements of early music adapted for the oboe/oboe d’amore are featured on his solo album, A New Renaissance, which is available on streaming platforms.