Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg (5 June 1935 – 3 March 2017) was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1961.

Mengelberg was born in Kiev, Ukraine, the son of the Dutch conductor Karel Mengelberg, who was himself the nephew of the conductor Willem Mengelberg. His family moved back to the Netherlands in the late 1930s and the young Mengelberg 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 to 1964. 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.