Romanian Contemporary Music - Part 1

In an effort to get a better understanding of our music history, I invite you on a new journey through the archives of Romanian music. I will try to present some of the most important composers and musicians from the Romanian contemporary music.

History is sprinkled with ups and downs, with time ellipses, myths and legends, subjective testimonies appeared in the absence (partial or even total) of factual, concrete and verifiable data and the existence of several versions of the same story. With the advent of new technological means, Romanian music experienced a boom and emancipation during the communist regime. The second half of the twentieth century laid the foundations of electronic music through various sonic attempts and experiments, made by several Romanian composers who built the Romanian cultural avant-garde.

We will listen to various recordings from the archives of the Romanian record label Electrecord, and its series Romanian Contemporary Music (or simply RCM), a list of around 70 records released by Electrecord between 1982 and 1991, from contemporary to electronic avantgarde.

Once again, just like in the case of the previous jazz episode (part 1 and part 2), I split the episode in two parts, the first one focusing on the period before the revolution from 1989 and the collapse of the communist regime, and the second part investigating the post-communist period and the context of today.

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*special thanks to Victor Plastic for the contributions

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*This article is part of the project Music & Conversations in the Attic, co-financed by AFCN.