Wim Mertens at Athens Concert Hall

Wim Mertens Ensemble will be appearing for one performance at the Megaron Athens Concert Hall on Saturday 2 October in the Alexandra Trianti Auditorium. The great Belgian artist and one of the most important representatives of minimalist composition and composer of film and theatre soundtracks will present the highlights of his rich body of work to the accompaniment of a string quintet. Wim Mertens plays piano and classical guitar and sings in his typically high voice using a notably personal language.

Wim Mertens has had more than 50 record releases over 30 years and numerous appearances around the world, either as a piano soloist or with a chamber orchestra or accompanied by symphony orchestras. His unique ability to evolve and experiment with the complexity of sound has resulted in a number of unique orchestrations throughout his career.

Starting with his first work, titled For Amusement Only (1980) - an electronic composition for pin ball machines - he has released more than 50 albums to date. He is also the author of American Minimal Music, the first book to deal extensively with the American school of repetitive music.

The active and perpetually restless Belgian composer, musicologist, contratenor and pianist has managed to reach a broad-based audiences thanks to the musical variety that distinguishes his work. From the music accompanying the performance of Jan Fabre's The Power of Theatrical Madness (1984) and Peter Greenaway's award-winning film The Belly of an Architect (1987) to the classic landmark minimalist albumVergessen (1982) and the popular Un Respiro (2005), the only certainty is that Mertens has never repeated successful musical forms nor conformed to a model in order to achieve commercial success.

Mertens' style, while continually evolving during the course of his prolific output, touches veins of minimalist, ambient and avant-garde, usually however preserving a melodic fundament to the forays that he makes into the worlds that he is exploring.

Don't miss Wim Mertens and his quintet live on 2 October at the Megaron Athens Concert Hall for a performance featuring the highlights of 30 years of work.