Born in 1965 in Athens, Alexandros Markeas studied piano and composition at the National Conservatory of Greece, then at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he has taught improvisation since 2003.
His work is marked by his desire to decode and modify the mechanisms of musical perception. He is often inspired by pre-existing music to reinterpret and deconstruct their aesthetic references by creating forms that freely alternate between references and pure sound abstraction. Traditional Mediterranean music, the renaissance repertoire, rock and jazz are an essential source of inspiration for him.
He also draws inspiration from different fields of artistic expression, such as architecture, theatre, and the visual arts (installations, events, video, web) to seek alternatives to the traditional concert and to create particular musical listening situations. His pieces are marked by a theatrical spirit and by the use of multimedia techniques.
Alexandros Markeas specialises in improvised music and gives numerous concerts as a soloist or in a group. At the same time, he devotes himself to composition. He attended the writing, analysis and composition classes at the CNSMDP with Guy Reibel, Michael Levinas and Marc-André Dalbavie. He obtained first prizes in counterpoint, fugue and composition, a discipline for which he followed the advanced cycle. He was also selected to follow the annual composition and computer music course at IRCAM, as well as the Académie de composition at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
For 30 years, his works have been performed in France and abroad by various groups such as the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Ensemble Modern, Alter ego, Proxima Centauri, Court-Circuit, l’Itinéraire, TM+, Ars Nova, Musicatreize, Sequenza 93, the Habanera Quartet, the Arditti Quartet, the Diotima Quartet, the Percussions de Strasbourg, the Philharmonic and National Orchestras of Radio France, the National Orchestra of Lorraine, the National Orchestra of Lille.
Alexandros Markeas has been commissioned by the French government, Radio France and the Royaumont Foundation, and has been awarded numerous residencies (the Quartz in Brest, the Arsenal in Metz, the Détours de Babel festival in Grenoble, the Printemps des arts festival in Monaco) to develop musical theatre projects and to compose many pedagogical works for children and amateur ensembles.
As a pianist, he has been developing the Piano-Cameleon project for several years, which consists of various improvised or premeditated sequences, based on the idea of the continuous change of the piano’s sound through the use of string preparation or electronics in real time.
