Misha Mengelberg
| Misha Mengelberg | |
|---|---|
Mengelberg in 1985
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Misja Mengelberg |
| Born |
5 June 1935 Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR |
| Died | 3 March 2017 (aged 81) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instruments | Piano |
Misha Mengelberg (5 June 1935 – 3 March 2017) was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer.
Mengelberg was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, the son of the Dutch conductor Karel Mengelberg (born Karel Willem Joseph Mengelberg; 18 July 1902, Utrecht – 11 July 1984, Amsterdam) and grand-nephew of conductor Willem Mengelberg. Karel Mengelberg was a Dutch composer and conductor, who worked in Berlin, Barcelona, Kiev and Amsterdam. A notable work of his was 'Catalunya Renaixent', written for the Banda Municipal of Barcelona in 1934.
Misha's family moved back to the Netherlands in the late 1930s and he began learning the piano at age five. Mengelberg briefly studied architecture before entering the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, where he studied music from 1958-64. While there he won the first prize at a jazz festival in Loosdrecht and became associated with Fluxus. His early influences included Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and John Cage, whom he heard lecture at Darmstadt.
Mengelberg won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1961. Among his first recordings was among Eric Dolphy's last, Last Date (1964). Also on that record was the drummer Han Bennink, and the two of them, together with saxophonist Piet Noordijk, formed a quartet which had a number of different bassists, and which played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1966. In 1967 he co-founded the Instant Composers Pool, an organisation which promoted avant garde Dutch jazz performances and recordings, with Bennink and Willem Breuker. He was co-founder of STEIM in Amsterdam in 1969.
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