A concert of Moscow Art Trio (classical/folk/jazz), ANGELITE - The Bulgarian Voices (female choir from Bulgaria) and Huun-Huur-Tu (quartet from Tuva, Central Asia) took place in a big hall of Sava Center, on Tuesday May 11th, 2004.
13/05/2004 :: The first result of a music experiment of these three groups was released on a CD "Fly, Fly My Sadness" (JARO, 1996). After a success achieved through several years of promotion in concerts world wide (from Japan to USA), the project was continued, and a new CD was published - "Mountain Tale". On these two CDs east and west, folklor and contemporary music meet creating a completely new world music language.
Moscow Art Trio (Moscow/Russia, Oslo/Norway)
"Clever members of the trade like the Ukrainian-Moldavian pianist Mikhail Alperin noticed this long ago and have defined the term "modern music" with the help of their genotype. Doubtless Jazz gives the basis for Alperin and his companions, the French horn virtuoso Arkady Shilkloper and the vocalist/clarinetist Sergey Starostin. But no one before has interlaced folklore and classical elements in blues format as consequent as the MOSCOW ART TRIO.
Mikhail Alperin (Moscow Art Trio- solo/piano) (Moldova, Oslo/Norway)
MIKHAIL ALPERIN was born in the Ukraine in 1956 and grew up in a rural area of Bessarabia, the eastern part of Moldova. Until 1976 he studied classical piano at music schools and academies in the Ukraine and Moldova. Since 1977 he has worked as a free-lance arranger, composer and practising musician.
Like most of the world's musicians, ALPERIN was obliged to earn his living with dance and party music. For the young musician, however, this music embodied things old and past. The future and freedom were to be found in music influenced by the West, music like rock and jazz. It was not until he had played in Moscow jazz circles for several years that he discovered the musical sounds of his native country for his own work. In Moscow he found other musicians also interested in integrating the musical traditions of their countries into jazz as an element of equal value, and in drawing from the rich tradition of the music of the peoples of the immense Soviet Union. It was during this period that he made the acquaintance of the brilliant hornist Arkady Shilkloper, a member of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra who nevertheless also belonged to the circle of jazz musicians.
In 1989, in a duo with Arkadij/Arkady Shilkloper, ALPERIN recorded the much-admired CD WAVES OF SORROW for ECM; where his latest production NORTH STORY, recorded with Tore Brumborg, Jon Christensen, Terje Gevelt and Arkady Shilkloper, appeared in 1996. With these musicians Alperin has also recorded works of Paul Hindemith and other composers of Classical Modernism.
In 1993 Alperin moved to Oslo in order to take on a position as professor of piano at the music academy.
In late autumn of 1995, Mikhail Alperin started an unusual project of uniting two previously unacquainted musical cultures in Sofia: the women's choir Angelite with its quite uncommon singing techniques and the four-man ensemble Huun Huur-Tu from the Southern Siberian region of Tuva, bordering on Mongolia. The latter group, for its part, cultivates a form of overtone and undertone singing which is also quite foreign for the Western ear. A third independent vocal style is added to the production by the Russian singer Sergey Starostin. ALPERIN, who has composed works for children's choirs, chamber orchestras, and jazz ballet as well as a concert for fluegelhorn, piano and symphony orchestra, wrote the arrangements for all of the pieces in this production.
For further information on Moscow Art Trio and ANGELITE, please visit www.jaro.de