Spectral music & electroacoustic improvisation // Performative gathering | Zilele Tranzit 2023

The performative gathering will be based on the results of the masterclass coordinated by Iancu Dumitrescu and Octav Avramescu, taking place on 6-8 November at Casa Tranzit (https://fb.me/e/1FOtj4ae4).

The music masterclass is open to those interested in para-academic practices for electroacoustic experimentation and extended instrumental techniques - to professionals, conservatory students and alumni, as well as self-taught musicians and composers; anyone interested in music study and collaborative practice. The workshop is also open to the audience. Musicologists, music journalists and music critics as well as people interested in philosophy, especially phenomenology, and how this field of study offers new perspectives on the field of music, can participate in the workshop.

Iancu Dumitrescu was born in Sibiu. He studied piano and composition in Bucharest, where his teachers included Florica Muzicescu and Alfred Mendelssohn, who introduced him to the music of Schönberg and Webern, which had been banned as degenerate art by the Nazis, and was known relatively late in Romania. Later he studied conducting and philosophy with Sergiu Celibidache, who led Dumitrescu towards musical phenomenology. His oeuvre includes a large number of works for instrumental solo and ensembles, electroacoustic and electronic music.
Internationally, Iancu Dumitrescu's music is most often associated with a specifically Romanian spectral school of the 60s and 70s, known belatedly in the West. Dumitrescu's interest in timbral transformations has led him to be associated with the music of his colleague Horațiu Rădulescu, but also with that of the French spectral school and Giacinto Scelsi. Dumitrescu also describes his musical production as "acousmatic", but refuses any direct affiliation.
In the mid-1960s he was among the founders of the Conservatory's electronic music studio, and in 1976 he founded the Hyperion Ensemble, described as a "multimedia group dedicated to experimental music" - a lifelong project dedicated to collaborating with academically and non-academically trained musicians. For them he composed electronic accompaniments and with this ensemble he recorded the works of himself and numerous collaborators. The recordings are preserved by his own record label, Edition Modern, in over 40 CDs created since its founding in 1990. Dumitrescu has also worked as a music journalist (before 1989) and concert organiser. After 1989 he founded and led as artistic director the international festivals Acousmania - International Festival of Electronic and Computer-Assisted Music; Musica Nova; Musica Viva; International Festival of Spectral Music and Spectrum XXI, held annually in three European capitals. In these capacities he has written about and collaborated with the leading performers and composers of contemporary music in Romania over the last 50 years.
He has a constant interest in collaborating with young artists and has led introductory workshops in his music in numerous contexts, from masterclasses at Harvard University, US or Goldsmiths, UK, to independent spaces such as Carol 53 or Malmaison, in Bucharest and Casa Tranzit, in Cluj.