iancu dumitrescu: pierres sacrees/hazard & tectonics

Born in Romania in 1944, Iancu Dumitrescu is one of the leading personalities in contemporary music, whose significance embraces composition, interpretation and philosophy of music. His music and ideas are increasingly influential, centered on the idea of acousmatics and on the phenomenological approach he learned from Sergiu Celibidache, which Dumitrescu applies to the composition itself. Acousmatics represents for Dumitrescu not only "the art of disguising a sonic source" in a concrete approach, but the very metaphor of the sound -- infinite, cryptic alchemy applied to the sound material. Dumitrescu's activity as a musicologist, composer and performer (conductor) intersected from the very beginning. In 1978, he received a scholarship from Sergiu Celibidache in Germany, thereafter embarking on systematic studies of general and musical phenomenology, while also conducting at the University of Trier and Munich. He adopted the Husserlian phenomenological perspective which led to important theoretical crystallization and to fertile creative conclusions, placing in question the principles of academic composition. According to Dumitrescu, this was the first time phenomenology was utilized as a true method of composition, which throws into query essential concepts, nevertheless hidden at that time: inspiration, vision, creativity, and imagination. Dumitrescu is considered one of the leaders of the spectral music trend worldwide. In 1976 he founded the Hyperion Ensemble, proposing a new aesthetic in today's music, hyper-spectral, based on the radiant power of sound within its microcosmic complexity, which is questioned, analyzed, and recomposed from a spectral perspective. Dumitrescu is also founder and artistic director of the International Music Festivals of Computer Assisted Music, Acousmania, Musica Nova, Musica Viva and the International Spectral Music Festival, Spectrum XXI -- held annually in three European capitals. His music is performed all over the world, with different ensembles, soloists and orchestras. As a Blodget artist-in-residence at Harvard University, he shared his methods and techniques of composition to the student graduates in composition. His output includes more than 300 works of chamber music, electroacoustic, orchestral music, computer music, etc. His work has been edited by Salabert (Paris), Editura Musicala (Bucharest) Gerig Musikverlage-Schott-Schone (Koln). His previous LPs and CDs have been published by Edition RZ (Berlin), Generation Unlimited (United States), Escargot-Harmonia Mundi (France), Electrecord (Bucharest), Artgallery (Paris), ReR Megacorp (London), Bananafish (Los Angeles), and Edition Modern (London-Bucharest). Vinyl cut at 45 rpm by CGB at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin, July 2013. Front cover photo courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.