She received her doctorate in Music Composition from Cornell University in 1987, where she studied with noted composers Steven Stucky, Karel Husa, and Yehudi Wyner.

[1] Choral music makes up the core of Alexander's works and performances, noted for her "accessible style that is well tailored to the requirements of both semi-pro and amateur choruses.

These melodic sensibilities include spirituals, jazz and blues from the American South, and Celtic-American folk music of Northern Appalachia, styles prevalent in her most performed octavos, "When the Song of the Angels Is Stilled," "Where There Is Light in the Soul," "Faith Is the Bird That Feels the Light," and "If You Can Walk You Can Dance.

[4] Alexander's "Reasons for the Perpetuation of Slavery" (2011) was performed at the Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in March, 2012, hailed as “brilliantly innovative” by the New York Concert Review.

[1] She was one of several composers interviewed and featured in Debra Spurgeon's Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success.