Born on November 18, 1934, in Bucharest, in a family with a solid artistic tradition (his father, the bass Mircea Buciu, was a solist of Bucharest's Opera), Dan Buciu has always mixed his aspect of composer and educator during his life. Having trained at the "Ciprian Porumbescu" Conservatory under the guidance of maestros Tiberiu Olah and Dan Constantinescu, he later perfected himself in electronic music and music computing with Aurel Stroe and Dinu Ciocan (1970-1975), as well as through participating at the prestigious Darmstadt Festival. His activity as a Bucharest National Music University professor culminated with his position as rector (2000-2008). At the same time, theoretically speaking, he was the author of a two-volume reference treaty about the tonal and modal harmony. His melodic creation was honored with six Romania Composers and Musicologists Union awards and also with the "Madrigal" Foundation's special prize. Few know that Dan Baciu has lived in the same building as Marin Constantin, to whom he has been tied in a humane and professional relationship full of warmth and respect.

I would like to start this discussion by asking, how do you see yourself at the moment in relation to Marin Constantinecu's complex personality?

I think we should reduce the question to the singularity that this extraordinary personality created by the Romanian music and whom Marin Constantinescu was, who cumulated multiple components in his musical formation and career, represents. Of course, for everyone, he will always be the famous "Madrigal" Chamber Coir's conductor, who glimmered all over the world. He remains, at the same time, however, a composer - a facet that may have been somewhat overshadowed due to the conductor's extraordinary fame. Therefore, a complete musician to which, last but not least, his quality as educator is added, he having dicpicples first and foremost among his madrigals. An entire generation of very skilled conductors was formed from among the madrigals. In conclusion, a complex personality, but, I repeat, dominated by this extraordinary quality of a great conductor.

You got to know him so well due to your father, isn't that right?

I can say that, by destiny's chance, at one point, in the building where our Baciu family lived, on 25 C.A. Rosetti street (we were on the 4th floor), the master Marin Constantin appeared on the first floor who, of course, had a very good relationship with my father. They knew each other very well and sometimes hung out for a drink to talk, conversations in which, as a student and then as a young teacher, I participated every so often. This way, I had the opportunity to achieve a sort of professional intimacy with maestro Marin Constantin. I was somewhat surprised that, at one point, he asked for my collaboration. Why do I say I was surprised? Because it was about a collaboration for a project he launched with the famous Italian actor and director Vittorio De Sica. It was about the event commemoration of the grievous atomic disaster memory in Hiroshima, for which he had proposed his son, who was a musician, to create a kind of arrangement. This did not turn out the way maestro Marin Constantin wanted. We had a very profound and consistent discussion that was the basis for this relatively difficult-to-create moment. Those 8 and some minutes that the song has, but that needed a whole year of work in the Bucharest Music Conservatory's electronic studios.

It's a formidable opportunity for a composer at the start of their journey…

This was the beginning. After that, what can I say? The sond turned out well, maestro Marin Constantin being very pleased, which, of course, made me happy too. It was one of the first works to have electronic music in the Romanian component phenomenon. There were collage musics all mixed on the basis of a script that, I repeat, had been very carefully put together by maestro Marin Constantin. Next was the first audition, and after that, this work's international career that accompanied master Marin Constantin in the numerous tours that he did after.

How do you remember that international period?

I would even dare to bring up some wonderful memories. At one point, I was on tour for the Berlin Biennale, where the work was presented, and it was followed by a tour through multiple important cities in the so-called democratic Germany, so the part occupied by the soviets. Very interestingly, the work was met with full appreciation from the public everywhere. I was saying that it had been played in other places as well; there could have been someone to conduct this band, to give them the start or to stop it when necessary, and that's what happened when there were tours all over the world, where he wore this piece as a symbol that he was sending to the romanian people, a pacifist nation through its history, constrained by wars to defend as we know very well, not to attack and conquer. I think this message has been received and appreciated everywhere as it should have been.