Gia
started to take piano lessons when he was just three and a half
years old but everybody remembers him banging the piano even when
he was two, trying to imitate his father playing the keyboard.
He started with classical music. Around the age of seven, he was
already crazy about pop and blues. Although a family of scientists,
his parents are listening a lot of music so he got involved at
a very early age also with jazz and, a whole collection of old
scores including rom anza, nocturnes and ragtime, which will occupy
most of his time. Listening to the great rock bands of the seventies
helped him to decide to pursue a career in music.
In high school, he was already an accomplished piano player. He
picked up the guitar and formed his first band called "Spectrum".
A band called "Pegasus" followed and by the end
of the 12th grade, he was already playing in jazz clubs or rock
festivals.
Following
an agreement with his father for becoming a decent fellow, he
had to study hydraulic engineering at the Polytechnic University
of Bucharest in parallel with Conservatory Studies and Arts School,
becoming a fine painter as well.
The new band he put together was called "Antim"
soon followed by "Om", sensational trio, very energetic
and successful. Now is a period of recording sessions, lots of
gigs, composition and orchestration lessons and, generally speaking,
a period full of action in his life.
He became the arranger for a couple of songs of the established
singer Roxane. TV, radio and life performances followed.
He achieved success of the main rock and jazz festivals in Romania
in Sibiu, Iasi, Craiova, Timisora, Costinesti, Constanta, Brasov
and Mamaia.  
 
                         
Upon
his graduation with a master degree in hydraulics, he collaborated
with No. 1 guitarist in Romania, Dan Andrei Aldea, for
projects including movie music and eventually a band, a short-lived
project. Gia put together a jazz septet featuring Bogdan Enescu
on drums, and records his first rock opera featuring Decebal
Badila, bass extraordinaire, Sharga Milutinovici, drums
and assorted percussion.
A
supergroup followed featuring Cobo (Gopeagu) Popesco, composer,
violin, guitars, and Sorin Scurtu, one of the greatest
Romanian drummers for bands like Academica, and
of Hyperion fame, internationally acclaimed "ensemble
contemporain", leader Iancu Dumitres-cu.
After playing all the weddings, bar-mitzvas, jazz clubs, rock
festivals, TV and radio sessions he could get his grip on, Gia
moved on to become again a student in Jerusalem, studying with
the renowned composer and pianist Viaceslav Ganelin at
the Academy Rubin of Music and Dance.
In Israel, he participates at prestigious jazz festivals, first
with the internationally acclaimed saxophonist and multiinstrumentalist,
Peter Wertheimer, and then with his own bands.
One
of the best Israeli fusion groups was formed, a powerful unit
called "Changes" featuring Asaf Sirkis on
drums and Gabi Meir on bass, with Gia playing 9
keyboards simultaneously, bringing him nicknames like Spiderman
or Romanian Spitfire.
The CD "Changes One", soon to be followed by "Changes
Two" and "Super Changes" still sell good
on the music market. The recordings are released through Jazzis
Records, the Israeli top label in jazz and fusion, monitored
by a highly successful producer, Adam Baruch.
Danny
Karpel, the Ed Sullivan of Israel, brought the group of "Changes"
in the broadcasting studio for a career interview which followed
their success; meanwhile, his brother Avi Karpel, who worked
with Jethro Tull, brought them in for recording
sessions.
Meanwhile, Gia emigrated to Canada, a life dream achieved,
starting all over again, writing movie music and teaching piano,
harmony and orchestration for Cosmo School and The Conservatory
of Music.
In
1999, he released "After was Before", a CD representing
a collection of items blending rock, jazz, classic and progressive
music with different kinds of music from his native Romania: hore,
sirbe, geamparale, sucile, batute; Middle Eastern sounds: darbouka
from arabic music, mizrahi or klezmer; Far Oriental types of forms:
ragas, ecktals, the sound of sitar, the sound of koto, all sorts
of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Tibetan music.
He currently lives in Toronto recording, teaching, performing,
painting and writing poems and music.
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