back to artists

Marc-Henning GALPERIN (GERMANY - ALLEMAGNE)

Marc Henning Galpérin, born on 24 March 1957 in Bremen, Germany, started to take classical piano lessons at the age of 10 with the goal of playing the church organ. He was influenced by popular rock music of the seventies that showed occasional blues- and boogie-influences, though he ignored the origins of this musical style. Marc: "Very early on and just for fun I started to play riffs by Marc Bolan (T. Rex) and other popular musicians on the piano - where these came from, I did not yet know". This changed in May 1976, when Marc attended a concert of the still relatively unknown Blues and Boogie-piano-player Vince Weber in his hometown. This was the kind of music that he had always wanted to play. Naturally Marc started out by playing titles of the wellknown pianists Albert Ammons, Meade “Luxemburg” Lewis and Pete Johnson to figure out how to play Boogie Woogie. However early on in his musical development Marc became a fan of the right n’ shape Chicago Blues played by musicians like Elmore James or by the Blues player Otis Spann, so he never pursued the path of a classical Boogie soloist (although Marc’s repertoire includes his own versions of well-known Boogie titles). He was more interested in the development of his own style and in the origins of the music. Marc feels most at home as a pianist in music bands though he also considers himself a solo pianist. Thus he has played for decades in different bands ("Boogie Jumpers", "Southern Boogie Boys", "Boogie Junction"), in duos with other pianists and – when performing in duos - solo. Currently he appears frequently with the “Boogie Woogie Compagny” Cologne", founded in 1964, probably the most popular traditional Boogie Woogie and Bluesband in Germany that has played to date 4000 gigs. Marc has performed on stage since 1977. He has played at many large festivals (Jazz Rallye Duesseldorf, Jazz-Festival Bad Hersfeld etc..) as well as on radio and television shows. He has shared the stage with many well known musicians (Big Joe Duskin, Angela Brown, Ulli Kron, Christoph Rois, Joachim Schumacher, Joerg Hegemann, Leo v. Knobelsdorff, Ali Claudi etc.).. His repertoire ranges from Blues to the fast and technically difficult Boogie with strong bass figures (he is after all left-handed) to expressive bluestitles. All his CD ' s are different and varied and show Marc ' s different facets as a soloist, as a partner in Piano-Duos, as a pianist in bands, as an interpreter of the hard Chicago style, rock as well as of the New Orleans style.

website : www.marc-galperin.de

---

---