Misha Alperin was born in the Ukraine in 1956 and grew up in rural Bessarabia in the eastern part of Moldavia. He played with folk musicians while also studying composition and piano, and was subsequently a member of the Moldavian Jazz Ensemble of saxophonist/violinist Semjon Shirman. Alperin came late to jazz. He did not even hear recordings of Charlie Parker and Coltrane until he was 24. Overwhelmed by the strength of the music, he transcribed solos by the great hornmen and endeavoured to adapt them for the keyboard. He had played the piano music of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich extensively, but nonetheless found the transition to a predominantly improvised mode called for the development of different skills.
Alperin moved to Moscow in 1983 where he met the French horn and flugelhorn virtuoso Arkady Shilkloper - then working with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre and the Bolshoi Brass Quintet - and began, experimentally, to cross-reference elements of the Russian and Romanian folks musics of the Moldavian region with his subjective understanding of the jazz tradition .
The first European tour of the Alperin/Shilkloper duo brought the duo to Oslo, where they risked a visit to the Rainbow Studio and taped a demo with Jan Erik Kongshaug. Soon afterwards, Manfred Eicher of ECM records tracked them down in Zurich and proposed the recording that became Wave of Sorrow in 1989, attracting the interest of the European critics. "Alperin's compositions are impossible to classify in terms of genre”, Thomas Rothschild wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau. "They are for the most part aphoristic pieces, indebted as much to Bartok, Schnittke or Kurtag as to Jarrett or Corea. They are unique indeed, and must be heard."
In 1990 Alperin started ‘The Moscow Art Trio’ with Shilklopper and Sergey Starostin (vocals, clarinet, brass-wind instruments).
They are seen as one of the most exiting formations of new jazz. The boundaries between jazz, folk and classical music have become irrelevant. Playfulness with a healthy dash of humour characterises the manner in which the elements of a wide range of musical areas are processed into something entirely new. They released several records on the German label Jaro.
In 2002, he met Russian classical pianist Mikhail Rudy with whom projects for concerts and recordings soon presented themselves. They recorded their first programme called Double Dream for EMI.In 2005-2006, Alperin toured Germany, Austria, Italy and Israël as a soloist and with Moscow Art Trio and gave master classes in Italy, Israël and Norway.
He currently is working on a project of the Moscow Art Trio together with a Chamber Orchestra. The ensemble will play music by Arvo Pärt, Misha Alperin and Josef Haydn, based on Russian folk traditions.
Since 1993 Misha Alperin lives and works in Oslo, where he teaches at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. He has become a central figure in the new improvised music of the Far North.
Alperin also undertakes projects with other musicians and he plays solo piano. He has released several albums with ECM Records, notably Night (2002), for piano, percussion, cello, and At Home (2001), solo. He composes film music, music for ballets and has made arrangements for the intercultural project with Huun-Huur-Tu and the Bulgarian womens choir Angelite.
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