TRANSYLVANIAN FIREPLACE
this is the fire place my dad built at his house in Skåne
and which he learned how to make when he was young in Transylvania
BUCHAREST BRASS ON TOUR
In Romania somewhere, don’t remember the town unfortunately.
I do remember though, that the hotel which you see below, gave me a room with bed full of bed bugs, and guess who was bitten real bad?
Noteworthy I had very high fever and was freezing like no one has ever frozen before.
And in this state I was during the whole stay, while playing in the concert as well as when playing dart.
Brrrrr…
Katarina tries to aim.
Mihai tries to aim.
Tudor tries to aim.
Lipoczi and Catalin play pools instead.
The members of the tour:
From the left: Mihai (tuba), Tudor (trumpet stand in for Emil), Catalin (trombone) and Lipoczi the original horn player. The horn player from the Spain picture on the earlier post was a stand in for Lipoczi. And Tudor and me was in the same year.
At the concert. The story behind this gig, was a rather funny one. We were told to play some pieces for the manager who was in visit in Bucharest to hear us play. Before the recital, our director invited us for some home made wine, from his own garden. It was DELICIOUS! And we had more than one plastic cup of wine. When it was time to play, we played so well with confidence and awesome!
We thought.
Instead our teacher told us we made several mistakes, though the wine made us fearless.
Well, we got the gig. =)
BUCHAREST
Read the New York times add about Bucharest from the link above. Lovely!
Will post more of my own Bucharest pics later, but here are three.
BUCHAREST BRASS QUINTET
This post wants to pay tribute to Bucharest Brass Quintet as we called ourselves. The quintet was started in 1 9 9 5 , and we had the success of radio and TV recordings, tours in Europe and participation in jazz festivals but above all a GREAT joy for playing together. We enjoyed every session of it if I remember correctly, especially the session when we were offered home made wine from our conductor. Sweet.
We were IT. Hot stuff. THE quintet. Alta viata (different life).
So, I’m the second from the left!
The picture was taken in Spain, in 1996 (I just found out from one of the members) during one of the TOURS.
The National University of Music in Bucharest is divided into two faculties: the Faculty of Composition, Musicology and Musical Pedagogy and the Faculty of Performing Arts.
All of the members above were in the Department of Performing Arts and in the year ahead of me. Now they are members of the Orchestra Nationala Radio Bucuresti, professors at the Academy or freelancing in the US with success.
Me, I’m currently a PhD student…
Iancu Vaduva was my trumpet teacher and Marin-Soare Magharescu was my professor of chamber music (brass quintet for us) and also the professor of trombone. Find the link to the National Academy of Music Bucharest as it is called now, if you want to have a peak: http://www.unmb.ro/.
I graduated with top grades in 1997, as did all of us. 9.6 out of 10 was my final average grade. I did my last 2 years, year 4 and 5 in one year. Halleluja. Because these grades sent me straight to Long Island University in New York, on an Academic Excellence Award (muchas gracias) so that I could pay my biology studies in NY.
I am so much wiser now.