Albums

Georges Aperghis
musica viva vol. 28 - Concerto pour accordéon / Six Études

NEOS 11728
June 2017

Georges Aperghis, Bernhard Lang, Philippe Manoury, Enno Poppe, Alberto Posadas, Walter Zimmermann
Donaueschinger Musiktage 2013

NEOS 11411-14
October 2014

Georges Aperghis, Salvatore Sciarrino, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Gérard Grisey
Works for Viola Solo

NEOS 10920
April 2010

Isabel Mundry, Enno Poppe, Brice Pauset, Ben Johnston, Arnulf Herrmann, Saed Haddad, Eduardo Moguillansky, Georges Aperghis, Bernhard Gander, Dror Feiler, Brian Ferneyhough
Donaueschinger Musiktage 2008

NEOS 10944
November 2009

Georges Aperghis
Works for piano

NEOS 10912
July 2009

Georges Aperghis was born in Athens in 1945 to an architect father and artist mother. He is largely self-taught: his interests were divided equally between painting (he was already exhibiting paintings at the age of 12) and music, which he explored for himself on the radio and in private piano lessons.

In 1963 he moved to Paris, where he abandoned painting for music and began to study composition. His earliest pieces are dominated by serial techniques and the innovations of Iannis Xenakis. After making a special study of the works of John Cage and Mauricio Kagel he began to turn to music theatre. He produced his first stage piece, La tragique histoire du nécromancien Hieronimo et de son miroir for two female voices, lute and cello, in 1971. In 1976 he founded the multi-media theatre group ‘Atelier Théâtre Et Musique’ (ATEM) in the Parisian suburb of Bagnolet.

Its performances are inspired by everyday life; social events are transported into a poetic, often absurd and satirical world; and plots only assume final shape in rehearsal after input from the musicians and actors. Aperghis has written many other stage pieces, compositions for solo instruments and voices, chamber music and orchestral works.