Iancu Dumitrescu

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Electracord ST-CS 0191

Bucharest, Romania

Avant-garde composer Iancu Dumitrescu was born July 15, 1944 in Sibiu, Romania.

Dumitrescu studied composition in Bucharest under Alfred Mendelssohn. He studied conducting and philosophy with Sergiu Celibidache who led Dumitrescu who gave him generous lessons in the principles of phenomenology.

He began composing his mature works in the early 1970's. In 1976 he founded the Hyperion Ensemble, which he describes as "a multimedia group dedicated to experimental music."

Dumitrescu has composed a large body of works for acoustic instruments and ensembles as well as works combining acoustic and electronic sounds and works composed entirely using tape or computer.

Dumitrescu describes his music as "acousmatic" but disclaims a relationship with the Acoustmatic Music of French musique concrete pioneer Pierre Schaeffer. His comositions are based on the acousmatic aesthetics by virtue of whichthe sound is subjected to analyses and dissociations (harmonic multisons - diagonal sounds) which confer it a genuine force of suggestion and penetration. He accepts the "spectralist" label, though he distinguishes his work from some others in the spectral school in that it is not serial. Dumitrescu has been quoted as saying, "I think of myself as a spectralist, but in completely different way from the French."

Dumitrescu is married to fellow composer Ana-Maria Avram (born 1961); they have more than 20 joint CD releases on their Edition Modern label. Recordings of Dumitrescu's works have also been released by Edition RZ, ReR Megacorp, Generations Unlimited, and other record labels.

The following recordings were composed between 1967 and 1972. Vinyl noise from the original Romanian LP release has not been removed so as not to compromise some of the more subtle sounds in the compositions which could have been lost in doing so.

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