About the Authors

Valentina Sandu-Dediu studied musicology at the National University of Music Bucharest, graduating in 1990. She has taught Musicology and Stylistics at the same institution since 1993. She has written and edited 12 books, over 40 studies and 300 articles; see Ipostaze stilistice și simbolice ale manierismului în muzică [Stylistic and Symbolic Hypostases of Mannerism in Music] (1995), Rumänische Musik nach 1944 (2006), Alegeri, atitudini, afecte: Despre stil și retorică în muzică [Choices, Attitudes, Affects: Style and Rhetoric in Music] (2010), În căutarea consonanțelor [Searching for Consonances] (2017), Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești [New Histories of Romanian Musics] (2020) – co-editor and co-author.

Valentina Sandu-Dediu has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and has been rector of New Europe College, Bucharest, since 2014. She is the recipient of the Peregrinus-Stiftung Prize of the Berlin-Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaften (2008). In 2010, she founded Musicology Today: Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest.


Vlad Văidean graduated the College of Arts in Baia Mare (piano) and now is a PhD student in musicology at the National University of Music Bucharest (UNMB), under the supervision of Prof. Valentina Sandu-Dediu. He received an Erasmus scholarship to the Institute of Musicology in Leipzig (Germany), where he studied under the supervision of Helmut Loos. He won first prizes in competitions such as the National Student Musicology Competition organized by UNMB (2012-2015 and 2017 editions), the Mihail Jora National Competition, music criticism section (2013 and 2014), the Musicology Competition within the Lipatti Days Festival (2012). Also, in 2017 and 2019 he was awarded by the two magazines published by the Union of Romanian Composers and Musicologists (UCMR): Actualitatea muzicală, as a young contemporary music critic, and Muzica, for musicological study. He has participated in national and international symposia in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Iași, Timișoara, and organized the symposium Garden of Words within the 15th edition (Sonorous Gardens) of the Meridian Festival (2019). He has published studies, essays, concert reviews and book reviews in Musicology Today and Acord (journals published by UNMB), Muzica, Actualitatea muzicală and Infinitezimal. He was part of the collective of authors of the first volume of New Histories of Romanian Musics (Editura Muzicală, Bucharest, 2020). Between April 2016 and June 2018, he edited the program notes of the concerts performed by the Bucharest Radio Orchestras and Choirs.

 


Sonia Neagoe studied piano, then musicology at the National University of Music from Bucharest (NUMB), with Valentina Sandu-Dediu. Her Bachelor paper focused on elements and features of the pastoral in music. She studied a semester at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Oldenburg, through Erasmus Program, and she is currently enrolled in the Master’s Program at the NUMB. Her research for the master degree is concentrated on the expressionist German and Austrian opera, highlighting the distorted features of the characters displayed in music, as well as in the libretto story. Her professional practice encompasses writing various materials for magazines and online sources, such as Acord (the University paper), and interviews for the national television and radio.


Antigona Rădulescu, musicologist and PhD in music since 2002, is professor at the National University of Music Bucharest, teaching courses on polyphony, semiotics and musical narratology. Since 1991, she is a member of the Romanian Union of Composers and Musicologists (secretary of the Musicology section between 2010-2014). Her musicological activity includes published books: Perspective semiotice în muzică [Semiotic Perspectives in Music] (2003), Johann Sebastian Bach (2010), Introducere în semiotica muzicală [Introduction to Musical Semiotics] (2013) – book for which she received the Romanian Academy Award in 2015, Odiseea muzicală / Musical Odyssey 1864-2014 (2014); main collaborator of the volume by Valentina Sandu-Dediu Muzica românească între 1944-2000 (2002), translated into German (Rumänische Musik nach 1944, 2006); coordinator and co-author of the collective volume Estetica. Un alt fel de manual [Aesthetics. Another kind of textbook] (2007); author of studies on various themes, from semiotics to modern and contemporary creation, published in academic journals; coordinator of the National University of Music Bucharest journal Acord.


Grigore Constantinescu graduated the Bucharest Conservatoire (1956-1962), then received a PHD in Musicology at the „Gheorghe Dima” Music Academy of Cluj-Napoca, in 1976. He was at first contributor to the Musical Edition House (Musicology section – 1962), and chief editor of the MUZICA column (1964). He is one of the most distinguished professors of the National Music University of Bucharest, where he spent more than 50 years, revealing to the students the secrets of music history, musicology, musical performance history or analysis of the vocal drama. His curiosity and working power, accompanied by passion and perseverance, determine the release of a huge number of books (essays, articles or history volumes), unveiling thus a special side of the musicologist who is up to this day animated by a genuine passion for writing regardless of the form it takes: articles in magazines such as Muzica, Flacăra, Melos, Actualitatea Muzicală, Cuvântul, Azi, Cronica Română, Opera International-Paris, or several volumes: Dimitrie Onofrei; Ghid de Operă (Opera Guide); Ghid de balet (Ballet Guide); Cântecul lui Orfeu (The Song of Orpheus); Romantismul în prima jumătate a secolului XIX (Romanticism in the first half of the XIXth century); Istoria operei în date (Opera History: a Chronology); Diversitatea stilistică a melodiei în opera romantică (Stylistic Diversity of the Melody in the Romantic Opera); Matei Socor; Margareta Metaxa, o voce a Operei Române (Margareta Metaxa, a voice of the Romanian Opera); Splendorile operei, dicţionar de teatru liric (Splendours of the Opera – a Dictionary); Madrigal sau Magia Sunetelor (The Madrigal Choir or the Magic of the Sounds); Tudor Ciortea, Oglindirile unei vieţi (Tudor Ciortea, Reflections of a life); Dorin Teodorescu – Imaginile unui destin (Dorin Teodorescu – Images of a destiny);  Lecturi cu… muzică (Reading with…music); O călătorie prin istoria muzicii (A Journey through Music History); Fascinaţia dansului (The Fascination of Dance); Giuseppe Verdi, Muzica, nimic mai simplu (Music. Nothing easier); Istoria muzicii în pas de dans (Dancing Music History); Gaetano Donizetti.
He was awarded several distinctions, there are countless readers who appreciate him, and there are many students who keep seeking his advice. There are entire generations of musicians who were influenced by him, and many books who will survive him. At almost 75 years, Grigore Constantinescu continues to live for music, while his existence could be quantified in words with and for music.


Download as PDF