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Carles Santos (Vinaros, 1940) can be considered an integral artist who started his long career as a pianist, covering later many other disciplines like direction and composition. The sum of all these facets, in addition to accumulated experience and reflections in other artistic areas like movies or theater, take shape in his numerous scenic, musical, and plastic works, which have given him an international recognition due to the originality of his projects and the rigor of their realization. His career began in the Superior Conservatory of Music of Barcelona's Liceo, where he obtained awards that would later give him an opportunity to complete his education in Paris where he studied with such masters as Fevrier, Casadesus, Magda Tagliaferro, Margaret Long, and later with Harry Datymer in Switzerland. As a professional pianist, he started his career in 1961, playing a repertoire of Bartok, Schoenberg, and Webern. During the same years, he composed and played the musical part of Joan Brossa's Concert Irregular, premiered at Saint Paul de Vence, Barcelona, and New York to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Joan Miro. It was a musical theater play with script by Joan Brossa and was commissioned by the Maeght Foundation. In 1968, he received a March Foundation grant and moved to the United States, where he worked with many personalities of the musical avant-garde and met John Cage. During the seventies, while directing the Grup Instrumental Catala (GIC), founded by himself and Mestres Quadreny, he made his first piano recording that included works by John Cage, Anton Webern, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. At the same time, his interest in movies leads him to collaborate with such directors as Pere Portabella, Jordi Cadena, Gonzalo Herralde, and Carles Duran. His debut as a filmmaker took place in 1967 with the short movie L'Apat; he went on through the nineties as a producer, screenwriter and music composer, having built up an extensive filmography that includes short and full-length films, documentaries, and several videos. His better-known discography starts in 1981 with the recording of Voice Tracks in New York. This was followed by Piano Track and a series of recordings for solo piano and voice, and, eventually, by recordings of longer works. To these recordings (see the discography pages) are added compositions for different orchestral groups, ensembles, and choirs ending at present with his cantata L'Adeu de Lucrecia Borja (2000), transformed later into an opera. From the seventies on he decides, as a pianist, to play nothing but his own music. Santos was invited to play at festivals all over the world, e.g., Festival d'Automme (Paris), Wintermusic '82 (Karlsruhe), Fundaçao Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Musicalia (Milano), Jazz Festival (Moers), Festival Música Nova de Santos (Brasil), Foro Internacional de Nueva Música (Mexico), Music Theatre Festival (London), Bienal San Juan de Puerto Rico, Zuerche Theater Spektakel (Zurich), New Music America '83 (Washington), Festival Internacional de Música Electroacústica (Cuba), etc. His music, which was always known to be influenced by minimalism, develops a very special personality and merges all kinds of musical languages and influences, from romanticism to atonal and dodecaphonic, and last, but not the least, Spanish. During that period, his great concern was communicating with the audience, bringing himself face-to-face with the public, and trying to avoid the boredom caused by certain avant-garde musicians of the period; that concern along with the passionate expression of his ideas has been constant throughout his artistic career. In addition, and as a consequence of his previous experience in the world of performance that is supposed to be a prelude to his theatrical dimension, from the early 80's on he begins to create a series of scenic and musical shows like Beethoven, si tanco la tapa...què passa? (1983), Té xina la fina petxina de Xina? (1983), Arganchulla, Arganchulla Gallac (1985), Tramuntana Tremens (1989), La grenya de Pasqual Picanya (1991), the opera Asdrúbila (1992), L´esplèndida vergonya del fet mal fet (1995), Figasantos-fagotrop: missatge al contestador, soparem a les nou (1996), La Pantera Imperial (1996/97), and Ricardo i Elena (2000). Also, Santos was the scenic director of Il Barbiere de Seviglia (2000). All these works have been performed at several festivals and theaters, e.g., Edinburgh International Festival, Brighton Festival, Salisbury Festival, Automme de París, Exit Creteil-París, Festival de Strasbourg, Festival ETI-Roma, Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, Festival de Otoño de Madrid, Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, and Festival de Theatre des Ameriques-Montreal. Santos has been commissioned for different special compositions, such as the Fanfares of Olympic Ceremonies for Barcelona '92 or the Fanfare for 2001 Musicians for the opening of the 2001 Biennal of Arts in Valencia. Besides, his career is jam-packed with awards and grants, e.g., Deutcher Akademie in Berlin (1986), Premi Ciutat de Barcelona for International Projection (1996), Premi Ciutat de Barcelona of Music (1993), Creu Sant Jordi of Catalunya's Generalitat (1999) FAD (1998), Premi Nacional de Composició de la Generalitat de Catalunya (1990), Premio MAX for the best soundtrack (2000), Premio de la Crítica de Barcelona for Ricardo i Elena as the best musical show, Premio MAX 2001 for the best composition and musical direction for Ricardo i Elena, etc. In addition to his scenic and musical productions, his interest in plastic arts, clearly shown in his scenographies with Mariaelena Roque, led him to exhibit his photos and poetic texts in different museums and art galleries, many of them being inspired by his own performances. This double CD-set is the companion to the final book reporting on the activities of Het Apollohuis. The recordings on these CDs give an idea of the music and the sound art presented in concerts at Het Apollohuis in the priod from 1980 through 1997. Out of a total of 500 performances I chose 38, from which exceprts of varying lenght have been included in this anthiology. These have been arranged in chronological order. The diversity of the selected pieces is characteristic of the programme of Het Apollohuis. Only limited number of composers and musicians who performed can be heard in brief fragments o these discs. Consequently a considerable number has been excluded. There simply was no way to include them all (this selection does not imply we value one above the other). The choice of the particular musicians has been my responsability (P: Panhuysen). liner notes: René van Peer sound selection: René Adriaans mastering: Frank Donkersgoed design: Tom Homburg, Marcel d'Anjou (Opera)