Harilaos Perpessas

Who was Harilaos Perpessas?

Harilaos Perpessas was a Greek composer of the Modern Era. He studied mainly with Schoenberg in Berlin. There he met Skalkottas but he remained opposed to both composers' compositional methods. After his first arrival in Greece in 1934 he became more actively involved in composition. In 1948 he moved to New York where he lived in virtual seclusion, reportedly declining commissions for film scores from Skouras, the president of Twentieth Century-Fox.

Along with Skalkottas and Mitropoulos, he is generally considered one of the first Greek composers who did not belong to the National School. His main influences are Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy and Ravel. He often kept revising his works withholding them from publication.