We mourn Misha Alperin, the pianist of the Moscow Art Trio. He died on Friday May 11th at the age of 61 years in Oslo. A coincidence and common ideas brought us together in 1995. Since then we have released 12 productions in which he has been involved. A person full of humour with whom we laughed a lot, who always knew which way he wanted to go and who published wonderful productions. Misha will live on through his music and his project with the BULGARIAN VOICE ANGELITE and HUUN HUUR TU ” Fly, Fly My Sadness and Mountain Tale are the most beautiful things we have ever released in over 30 years. Thank you for the beautiful music!
The Moscow Art Trio is one of the most exciting new jazz formations. The boundaries between jazz, folk and classical music have become irrelevant or as the critic, Mike Zwerin, wrote in the International Herald Tribune: “Rarely have the frontiers between epochs, Eastern and Western folk music, and jazz and classical music been so gracefully negotiated as by the Moscow Art Trio.’ ‘The personalities of the trio’s members are more important than the instruments they play.”
Piano player Mikhail Alperinis the composer and guiding force of the trio. He has been living in Oslo since 1993 and has become a central figure when it comes to new improvised music of the far north. Horn player Arkady Shilkloper was a member of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and has worked with the Bolshoi Theater orchestra. His unique ability to combine the different music languages makes him famous all over the world. Folksinger Sergey Starostin always showed great interest for folk tales and folk music, even while studying classical music. Whenever he travelled around the former Soviet Union, he would collect stories, songs and traditional instruments. In the Moscow Art Trio he is playing folk reeds and clarinet. He is also writing most of the lyrics.
The first performance of the trio has been on the 5th of June 1990 in Moscow. Since then Moscow Art Trio has been performing all over the world. They have produced many CD’s and cooperated with artists like Bulgarian Voices Angelite Huun-Huur-Tu from Tuva.
Style
The Moscow Art Trio’s spectrum is exceedingly wide– it travels musically to the border of China, paints with Impressionist colors, plays a tricky Russian wedding dance. The music of the ensemble is enriched not with exotic trinkets tacked on as decoration, but with delicate nuances, embedded homogeneously in the group sound. The result is a new form of jazz– poetic jazz. In the midst of Moldavian, Georgian and Russian themes the ‘figures of speech’ often used are the: repetitions, wild outbreaks, and moments of stillness.
Performance
Phil Johnson, of The Independent Magazine, referred to the performance of the Moscow Art Trio as: “Unlike other European groups who aim at a home-made, “poor theatre” type of music the Moscow Art Trio don’t have to try to sound Post-Modern – they just are, and in a way that makes what they play, and the context of performance which underpins it, look and sound both utterly contemporary and timeless. Tarkovsky, no; Paradjanov (the Armenian director of The Color of Pomegranates), yes. Once word gets out, they will be the band to book for every festival going.” this way, it is not accidental that the discography of the Moscow Art Trio includes so many live recordings.
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'Legend' is a live double CD presenting the complete concert program of the Bulgarian Voices Angelite, Huun-Huur-Tu and Moscow Art Trio collaboration. Here the beauty of the program can be enjoyed in its entirety. This product of many years of work and collaboration is one of the highlights of the world music genre in concert.
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This CD is of particular interest because it marks the first time the Moscow Art Trio worked with an orchestra. The album was recorded with the Norwegian Orchestra (artistic director– Terje Tønnesen). Mikhail Alperin referred to the compositions as music for an imaginary ballet in six pieces that fantasize on the rural topic. The sources of inspiration are multiple ranging from Sergey Paradjanov’s movies,weddings and Indian Raga.
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The album is a limited edition CD of a live concert held in the Netherlands celebrating the 20thanniversary of the ensemble. -
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A Polish television recording of the concert at the Kalicz Piano Festival shows the trio’s brilliance and humor, impressively accentuated by the facial expressions and body language of the three musicians. In addition to the eighty-minute concert, the DVD presents a lengthy interview with the ensemble recorded in Moscow in the early summer of 2006.
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This album was recorded after a two year hiatus of the band due to the sickness of Mikhail Alperin. The CD contains no traditional songs. The lyrics are written by Sergey Starostin and the compositions by Mikhail Alperin. The German Concerto Magazine has reviewed the album by saying: “[…] An excellent one, a masterly extremely interesting musical experience.”
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This series of initially four CDs provides us with new windows onto the music of our neighbours to the east. No mere rehashing of balalaika and other clichés, it tunes us into a wide range of temperaments and brings us closer to little-known musical cultures of the eastern world. Old melodies and new songs, all of them interpreted by outstanding musicians from the respective countries. A different mood prevails on each of the four CDs. From Russia we hear a hint of melancholy in music which moves us to the core.
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This recording was made in the early 1990s and to this day has been released only in Russia. The music on this CD is not directly inspired by Norwegian fjords. As Alperin tells us: “[…] it is the expression of an inexplicable nostalgia for the future. Or maybe I just dreamt all of this, the way I have always dreamt my life.”
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The album gathers the influences of Asian and rap music. All these are drawn together by the thread of the multi-talented Norwegian singer, Eli Kristin Hovdsveen Hagen. The traces of Norwegian musical ideas have developed gradually – more or less unconsciously, but naturally – in the course of Alperin’s several years of living in Norway.
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The CD marks the second collaboration of Angelite with Huun-Huur-Tu and Mikhail Alperin. The latter’s arrangements leads listeners on a journey of discovery through similarities and differences of Russian, Bulgarian and Tuvan folklore, culminating in the fusion presented on this CD. -
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This album is a presentation of several projects by Mikhail Alperin. Here the listener can enjoy music from different ensembles and line-ups: from piano solo to brass quintet, from folk-choir to violin, recorded live and in studios in Europe and USA. However, the idea of the album is far from putting together a show-sampler or a loose collection of compositions.
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The album is a continuation of the Moscow Art Trio’s aesthetic concept, which provides for equal participation of Arkady Shilkloper, a horn player with a background in classical music, the folk singer and clarinetist Sergey Starostin, and Alperin, who refers to himself as “a kind of improvising pianist”. Together they allow for the sense of pleasure, humor and technical brilliance to come into our ears.
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The first CD that documents the Moscow Art Trio’s live work. It contains the recording of an inspired concert on the NDR radio studio in Hamburg in 1996.
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With Arkady Shilkloper, French and flugelhorn, and Starostin, voice and percussion, this album is a follow-up of “Folk ” with the same brilliant combination of Jazz and Russian-Moldavian-Romanian Folk elements as well as the guest musicians from the South Siberian republic of Tuva (overtone and throat singing) and a Russian Folk ensemble.
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The listener can enjoy here an impressive combination between Jazz and Russian-Moldavian-Hungarian folk elements, with guest musicians from the South-Siberian Tuva as well as a Russian folk choir (Russkaja Pesnja).
Mikhail Alperin – piano, claviolo, melodica, vocals
Mikhail Alperin was born in the Ukraine in 1956 and grew up in a rural area of Bessarabia, the eastern part of Moldavia. Until 1976 he studied classical piano at music schools and academies in the Ukraine and Moldavia. Since 1977 he has worked as a free-lance arranger, composer and practicing musician. In 1980, along with Simon Shirman, Alperin founded the first Moldavian jazz quartet by developing his idea of linking jazz and folk read more
Arkady Shilkloper – French horn, Fluegelhorn, vocals
Arkady Shilkloper was born in 1956, in Moscow, Russia. He began to study playing alto horn at the age of six and switched to French horn in 1967. At the age of eleven he entered the Moscow Military Music School. One of most unusual Russian musicians, Arkady plays French horn, flugelhorn, alphorn and many more wind instruments that are unusual. From 1978 to 1985 he was a member of the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre. With this world-famous orchestra and as a member of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 to 1989, he undertook numerous worldwide concert tours read more
Sergey Starostin – clarinet, brass-wind instruments, vocals
Sergey Starostin is a musician, a tireless explorer, and a talented master. He is a brilliant Russian folk and jazz musician, singer and multi-instrumentalist. He’s been collecting and studying Russian folk songs for many years now. In this sense, he is not simply a performer, but also a serious explorer of the folklore who sees a number of phenomena from his own unique perspective. This perspective is then shared through his musical endeavors read more
[/tab][tab title=”Selected Discography”]
Self-Portrait(1987) at Melodia Records: Mikhail Alperin piano solo
Three O– Three Holes Modern Music Ensemble (1989) at Melodia c60 2846-1
Wave of Sorrow (1989) at ECM 1396: Alperin/ Shilkloper
Mad Man from the Moon (1990) at Soundings World Jazz: Alperin/ Keshavan Maslak
Live in Grenoble (1992) at RDM 305015: Alperin/Shilkloper
Blue Fiords (1993) at RDM: Alperin Piano solo
Pago Libre (1996) at Bellaphon CDLR 45105: Pago Libre Quartet with Arkady Shilkloper
North Story(1996) at ECM 1596: Misha Alperin Quintet (Tore Brumborg, Jon Christensen, Terje Gevelt & Arkady Shilkloper)
Fly Fly My Sadness (1996) at Jaro 4197-2: The Bulgarian Voices Angelite feat. Huun-Huur-Tu, Mikhail Alperin & Sergey Starostin
Hornology (1997) at CDBMR 809016: Arkady Shilkloper solo
First Impression (1997) at ECM 1664: Mikhail Alperin/ John Surman with Arkady Shilkloper, Terje Gevelt, Jon Christensen & Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen
Mountain Tale (1998) at JARO 4212-2: The Bulgarian Voices Angelite & Moscow Art Trio feat. Huun-Huur-Tu
At Home (1998) at ECM 1768: Mikhail Alperin piano solo
Night (1998) at ECM 1769: Mikhail Alperin with Anja Lechner & Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen
The Farlander (1999) at JARO 4222-2: Farlanders with with Sergey Starostin
Portrait (2000) at JARO 4227-2: Mikhail Alperin
Moments. Live in Bremen (2000) at JARO 4230-2: Farlanders with Sergey Starostin
Journey (2000) at JARO 4226-2: Sergey Starostin’s Vocal Family (arr. Mikhail Alperin)
Pilatus (2000) at CDBMR 906063: Arkady Shilkloper solo
Outline (2000) at Boheme Music CDBMR: Arkady Shilkloper, Vladimir Volkov, Andrey Kondakov
Winter in Moscow (2001) at Jaro 4235-2: Mari Boine, Sergey Starostin, Inna Zhelannaya, and The Farlanders
Mauve (2001) at Quinton 0106-2: Shilkloper, Alegre Correa, Georg Breinschmid
Cinemagique (2001) at The Montreux Label 01112: Pago Libre with Shilkloper
Phoenix (2003) at Leo Records CD LR 377: Pago Libre with Arkady Shilkloper
Presente para Moscou (2005) at Jaro 4264-2: Arkady Shilkloper solo
Stepping Out (2005)at Leo Records CD LR 444: Libre with Shilkloper
VSP Orkestra and Arkady Shilkloper (2005) at ORK 002
Zum Gipfel und zuruck. Neue Alphornmusik (2006) at MGB CD 6246: Arkady Shilkloper solo
Her First Dance (2006) at 1995 : Mikhail Alperin, Arkady Shilkloper & Anja Lechner
Niels Klein Tentett – The Last Soup (2007) at JHM 163: Niels Klein, Oliver Leicht, Steffen Schorn, Stephan Meinberg, Arkady Shilkloper, Matthias Muche, Frank Wingold, Wolf Kerschek, Dietmar Fuhr & Eric Schaefer.
Vince Mendoza – Blauklang (2008) at ACT 9465-2: Nguyên Lê, Markus Stockhausen, Claudio Puntin, Steffen Schorn, Frank Sackenheim, Arkady Shilkloper, Jon Sass, Lars Danielsson, Ulla van Daelen, Peter Erskine & Christopher Dell
The Grieg Code – Geir Lysne Ensemble (2009) at LC 07644: Geir Lysne, Morten Halle, Tore Brunborg, Steffen Schorn, Eckhard Baur, Jesper Riis, Arkady Shilkloper, Helge Sunde, Lars A. Haug, Jørn Øien, Bjørn Kjellemyr, Andreas Bye & Terje Isungset
Fake Folk (2009) at Zappelmusic ZM001: Pago Libre with Arkady Shilkloper feat. Patrice Heral
Live in DOM (2010): A.Shilkloper, Igor Ivanushkin, Artem Fedotov, Arkady Freeman
Mussorgsky Dis-Covered (2010): Elisabeth Kulman, Tscho Theissing, Arkady Shilkloper, Miki Skuta, Georg Breinschmid
Zhyli-Byli (2011) at Jaro -2: Sergey Starostin, Klevensky, Taisia Krasnopevtseva & Krasnopevtseva
