Conferences

Sunday 6^th Mai, at 11.00, at the National Theatre's Black Box, Dan Dediu will hold a conference on the theme About travesty in music. Ticket prices: 23 and 10 lei.

About the conference

Is it possible to imagine the travesty in some other way than metaphorically outside the theater? Probably not. But because theatre meets music in opera, then music can dare to take over the travesty and extend it into the area of sounds.

Starting from the idea that the travesty is an unsuitability between what we see and what we hear, Dan Dediu researches its various facades in music. The defining area of this unsuitability is the one of the sexes: to look like a woman and talk like a man or to look like a man and talk like a woman are phenomena that surely create a tensioned waiting for the audience. But if we dig further and ask: if we do not talk but sing, isn't this initial unsuitability a shocking contradiction between how we look and how we sing?

Firstly, the travesty is differentiated from disguise and various examples from the opera's tradition are reeled out (the castrated boys from the baroque opera, the travesty of Mozart and Beethoven, and of Richard Strauss). Afterwards a jump is made to the speculation of music with the help of music's definition as theatre of affects, and the role of the two sexes is taken over by the vocal and instrumental music genres. The journey goes on in an unexpected manner, revealing dazzling travesties, methods of concealing the essence, immersions in the double musical memory and many other ideational recesses, which eagerly wait to be brought into light.  

About Dan Dediu

Dan Dediu (1967) studied composition in Bucharest with Ştefan Niculescu and Dan Constantinescu, and in Vienna with Francis Burt. Various creation and research grants (Herder and A. Berg - Vienna, Ircam - Paris, New Europe College- Bucharest, The College of Science - Berlin, Villa Concordia - Bamberg) had a decisive role in his evolution as a composer. More than 130 opuses which cover almost every musical genre: 4 symphonies and other pieces for orchestra (Narcotic Spaces, Ornements, Studii-Motto, The Fear, Frenesia, Mantrana, Grana, Verva), 5 concerts (saxophone, viola, violin, piano), 4 string quartets, chamber music in various bands, piano music, choirs, electronic music, 4 operas (Post-fiction, Münchhausen, Eva!, The Lost Letter).

National and International prizes for composition and performance (Vienna, Dresden, Paris, Berlin, Ludwigshafen, 9 prizes from the UCMR, The Romanian Academy's Prize, The Enescu Prize). He also presided various festivals, ensembles and renowned musicians. Published by the Musical Publishing House, Peermusic (Hamburg - New York), Lucian Badian Editions (Ottawa). His works are available on CDs in Romania (The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company, The Musical Publishing House), Germany (Pro Viva, Cavalli Records, Neos), Australia (Move Records), Holland (NM Extra).       

He also published two monographies (about Ludovic Feldman and Dan Constantinescu - the latter one together with Valentina Sandu-Dediu), an essay volume (Radicalisation and guerilla), as well as many studies, articles and conferences. Between 2003 and 2006 he made for TVR 88 episodes for the initiation in music series "The adventure of sounds", for which he received the ATF prize for the year 2004, and 12 episodes for the series "Music from an exhibition" (2008 - 2009). He is Officer of the "For Learning" Order and Knight of the "Cultural Merit" Order.

He coordinated, as an art director, the Week of New Music Festival (editions from 1999, 2001, 2007 and 2008) and the Profil Festival (editions from 2004 and 2006). Dan Dediu is a composition professor, he was the head of the composition department from the National University of Music from Bucharest, he is the art director of the Profil ensemble, and at present he is the rector of the National University of Music from Bucharest.

His music generates energy, clarity of expression, melodic-harmonic assuredness, based on a versatile sense of instrumental forms and colours, as well as on an aesthetic oscillation between playfulness and tragedy. The typical sonority of his compositions is defined by many elements: a capricious staccato, unforeseeable disposition shifts, temporality crossovers, rich associative imagery, conspicuous and memorable melodic motifs, precise psychological definitions realized with only a few sounds.

Translated by: Izabella Feher