Aleks studied music at Goldsmiths College in London and violin with Clarence Myerscough at the Royal Academy of Music. He was taught by John Tilbury and Hugh Davies, and in 1982 participated in seminars and performances directed by John Cage. Over the past 25 years he has worked internationally as an improvising violinist, interpreter, solo performer and composer for dance, theatre and film. He has created several mixed-media projects in the UK and in Germany together with artists, film-makers and choreographers. His latest work combines instruments and machines from the pioneering era of sound recording and reproduction (Stroh instruments, wind-up gramophones, shellac discs and wax-cylinder phonographs) to make live mechanical-acoustic music. Since 1999 he has explored the potential of pre-electronic sound reproduction technology in live performance. This work has been shown in Germany, Holland, Poland, Italy, Austria and the US. Compositions include Voices and Etchings for six singers and gramophones (Staatsbankberlin, 2003) and Mechanical Landscape with Bird (MaerzMusik, Berlin 2004), featuring live singing canaries, wax cylinder phonograph recordings and a rotating horned string quartet. Collaborators have included: Martin Riches, Apartment House, Kairos Quartett, Ute Wassermann, Anna Clementi, Aki Takase, Tony Buck, Hayley Newman, Phil Minton, Tristan Honsinger, Tony Oxley, Evan Parker, Sainkho Namchylak, Louis Moholo, Jon Rose, Matt Wand, Richard Barrett, Phill Niblock, Christian Wolff, Claus van Bebber, Boris Hegenbart and many others.