About Me
Ali Berkok is a pianist, composer and sound designer. Moving into his third decade as a performing pianist, he has produced six albums as a leader for improvising outfit Arkana Music, and his current quartet, Aurochs. His solo piano album, Never Get Lost for Long, features reinvented jazz standards (“Cheek to Cheek,” Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”) and spontaneous extemporized compositions. Film credits include a new score for Battleship Potemkin, and Advances (Thought4Food). Berkok’s sound design and composition credits for theatre include Carol Shields’ 13 Hands (Alumnae), Marina & The Cryptids (Silent Protagonist), What I Call Her (Crows) and Unsafe (Canadian Stage). Chief amongst his research interests is polytemporality, the simultaneous presence of two or more asynchronous rhythmic layers, for creative effects such as destabilizing listeners’ sense of pulse. Berkok holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Toronto.
