MISHA ALPERIN

MISHA ALPERIN (1956-2018) Misha Alperin, pianist, composer, improviser and independent musical thinker, has died, aged 61. Born in the Ukraine in 1956, Misha Alperin grew up in rural Bessarabia, the eastern part of Moldavia. He played with folk musicians while also studying composition and piano, and came late to jazz, hearing recordings of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane only when he was 24. The first jazz pianists who caught his attention were Art Tatum, Red Garland, Thelonious Monk, Lennie Tristano and Keith Jarrett, and he drew inspiration from all of them. In 1983 Alperin moved to Moscow, where he met the french horn and flugelhorn player Arkady Shilkloper - then working with the Bolshoi Brass Quintet – who soon became his closest ally in a musical attempt to “break down barriers and borders not only geographically, but also historically - the borders between epochs.” The first Alperin/Shilkloper European tour brought the duo to Oslo, read more...