Mikhail Alperin has been played on NTS in shows including Devotion w/ Lafawndah, featured first on 16 April 2017. Songs played include Fly, Fly My Sadness, Lonely Bird and The Blue Fiords.

Misha Alperin (Michail Jefimowitsch Alperin; Ukrainian: Миха́йло Юхи́мович Альпе́рін, 7 November 1956 – 11 May 2018) was a Soviet-Norwegian jazz pianist, known as a key member of the Moscow Art Trio.

Alperin was born in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukrainian SSR and educated in Khmelnytskyi, Bălți and Chișinău. In 1980, he formed one of the first jazz ensembles in Moldavian SSR. He moved to Moscow in the 1980s and founded the Moscow Art Trio with Arkady Shilkloper and folk singer Sergey Nikolaevich Starostin. He has also worked with Huun Huur Tu. From 1993 to 2018 he lived in Oslo, Norway; he was professor of music at the Norwegian Academy of Music and he supervised pianist Helge Lien and Morten Qvenild among others. He released several works on ECM Records. He died on 11 May 2018 at the age of 61.

Discography An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release.

Year recorded Title Label Personnel/Notes 1989 Wave of Sorrow ECM Duo, co-led with Arkady Shilkloper (French horn, jagdhorn, fluegelhorn, vocals) 1992 Folk Dreams Jaro Medien 1993 The Blue Fjords RDM Solo piano; reissued as Blue Fjord by Jaro Medien 1996* Hamburg Concert Jaro Medien 1996* Prayer Jaro Medien 1997 First Impression ECM With John Surman (soprano sax, baritone sax), Arkady Shilkloper (French horn, flugelhorn), Terje Gewelt (bass), Jon Christensen (drums), Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen (percussion) 1998 North Story ECM Quintet, with Arkady Shilkloper (French horn, fluegelhorn), Tore Brunborg (tenor sax), Terje Gewelt (bass), Jon Christensen (drums) 1998 At Home ECM Solo piano 1998 Night ECM Trio, with Anja Lechner (cello), Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen (percussion, marimba, vocals); in concert 2000* Overture/Etude Boheme
2000* Piano Boheme In concert 2000* Portrait Jaro Medien 2006 Her First Dance ECM Trio, with Arkady Shilkloper (French horn, fluegelhorn), Anja Lechner (cello)

Mikhail Alperin, also known as Misha Alperin, was born in Kamenez Podolsky, 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 practising musician. In 1980, along with Simon Shirman, Alperin founded the first Moldavian jazz quartet by developing his idea of linking jazz and folk.

As a young musician, Alperin earned his living with dance and party music. For him, however, party music embodied things old and past. In contrast, 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, thereby 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 hornist Arkady Shilkloper, a member of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra who also belonged to the circle of jazz musicians.

In the CD production "Prayer" Mikhail Alperin & Shilkloper have expanded their jazz explorations eastward. They not only integrate a genuine singer of traditional Russian music, Sergey Starostin, but they also risk a spectacular encounter of two very different cultures: the Russian choir tradition with that of Mongolia and Southern Siberia, represented by vocalists from Kyzyl, Tuva. The result is amazing. Our Eurocentric perception is immediately transported into other remote times and spaces. One cannot help but feel that here jazz meets the Middle Ages.

Mikhail Alperin's contribution to contemporary music is not only the integration of various peoples' musical traditions but also the crossing of stylistic boundaries. Free of care, he fuses music of the past with contemporary elements.

In 1989, in a duo with Arkady Shilkloper, Alperin recorded "Waves for Sorrow" for ECM. Then, in 1996, he recorded "North Story" with Tore Brumborg, Jon Christensen, Terje Gevelt and Arkady Shilkloper. This same collaboration has also recorded works of Paul Hindemith and other composers of classical modernism.

In 1993 Alperin moved to Oslo to take on a position as associate professor of music (piano, composition, and improvisation) at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

He has composed works for children’s choirs, chamber orchestras, and jazz ballet as well as a concert for fluegelhorn, piano and symphony orchestra,

In late autumn of 1995, Mikhail Alperin took on the musical direction of an unusual project uniting two previously unacquainted musical cultures: the Bulgarian women's choir Angelite, with its quite uncommon singing techniques, and the four-man ensemble Huun Huur-Tu from Tuva. The latter group, for its part, cultivates throat singing, 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 wrote the arrangements for all of the pieces in this production.