From the 19^th to the 26^th of May 2024, the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania invites the public to the 33rd edition of the International New Music Week Festival. Composer Dan Dediu talked about this year's events on Perpetuum mobile on Wednesday May 15^th.

Composer Dan Dediu, now in the Radio România Muzical studio. Welcome!

Thanks for the invitation!

The 33rd edition of the International New Music Week Festival, which you are coordinating as artist director, is about to begin. On Sunday May 19^th, the first event in the series will take place. What do you propose to open?

The opening concert will be at the "George Enescu" Hall of the National University of Music in Bucharest, with free entrance, the Concerto Orchestra conducted by Bogdan Voda. We have three works, all in first audition. We will open with a recent work by Corneliu Dan Georgescu, a venerable Romanian composer of the '70s generation, a work that is very nicely titled - Prelude to an unfinished symphony. Then, Adina Dumitrescu's Firidă în penumbră will follow; again, a composer with a double influence - on the one hand Romanian, on the other Finnish (she spent many years in Finland) - and an avid researcher of Romanian folklore. And we will end with a cantata by Cristian Alexandru Petrescu - Anti-schisma laudamus for three voices (Cristina Fieraru, Dan Macavei, Andreea Elena Păduroiu and the child Șerban Oliver Șușnea), choir (with a choir from the National University of Music in Bucharest coordinated by Florian Costea and Aurel Muraru). So, this would be the programme, a programme of first auditions. We are very curious to hear the young students perform these contemporary works.

I took a look, I admit, at this year's SIMN programme and the first thing I noticed that was different from previous editions... a lot of voices present this year, both soloists and vocal ensembles.

There is an emphasis in this edition on the human voice in its various guises, whether solo voices, cantatas accompanied by orchestra, lieder recitals, piano recitals of contemporary arias or choirs. We will also have the Academic Radio Choir on Thursday, with a programme of contemporary Romanian choirs. The choir will be conducted, of course, by its conductor, Ciprian Țuțu. And we will have two more concerts with orchestra, thanks to the collaboration with Radio România, which has been our partner since the first edition. I welcome this extraordinary partnership with Radio România, with the bands and with Radio România Muzical and Radio România Cultural!

Various ensembles... May I also say a few words about the fact that Romanian works will be performed for the first time by the Radio Chamber Orchestra on the one hand, and by the National Radio Orchestra on the other. There will be established composers who will headline. This is a work not yet performed in a festival context, by the late Maestro Octavian Nemescu. Then, three Romanian premieres, two of them absolute firsts - a concert for percussion by Mihai Măniceanu, featuring percussionist Sorin Rotaru, and a cantata by Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea for two sopranos and orchestra. The two sopranos who will perform are Teodora Spiess-Gheorghiu and Diana Țugui. Last but not least, the conductor of this concert, violinist, musician and teacher Vlad Maistorovici, will also have a work. He will conduct the whole concert, but he will also conduct a work of his own, a work with an extremely sophisticated title, Mic tesseract armonic... to say the first words. It is, in fact, a profound meditation on the little harmonic labyrinth, which has been mistakenly attributed to Bach and which is actually by Heinichen, a contemporary of Bach. So, a programme that also dips into the past, dips into the tradition of symphonic and concertante music, but at the same time is anchored in the present.

And on Friday, the National Radio Orchestra will present a concert with three works: the last work written by George Balint, from whom we have been separated since 2019, and I think we are doing a good thing to bring it to the public's attention (with soloist Adriana Toacsen); a debut work, Broken by Mihaela Vosganian and, last but not least, Symphony I by Călin Ioachimescu, the venerable composer who has been a true pillar of musical direction here in Radio România for so many years.

All three, absolute premieres...

All three first auditions and all three, I must say here, conducted by the great master of the baton, Cristian Mandeal, whom I thank personally and whom we thank from the bottom of our hearts for doing everything possible to support this concert.

National University of Music in Bucharest, Radio Hall. Which are the other venues that will host SIMN concerts?

We also have an experimental concert together with the Goethe Institut at the Studio Hall of the Odeon Theatre. It's a surprise concert whose concept belongs to IrinelAnghel. It's marking the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka, "My name is K" is the concept of the concert. It's a surprise, as I said, I'm not divulging it.

There would be another concert, also a show, ICONS with MateiIoachimescu in the main role and, on top of that, a flute ensemble of his own, two performers on percussion, to be held at the Arcub Hall in Gabroveni Street.

The rest of the concerts, up to 22 (this is the number of concerts in the festival), in the 8 days of the festival - May 19^th - 26^th - will take place at the halls of the National University of Music in Bucharest where the entrance is free.

There will also be a musicology symposium, as every year.

That's right, like every year. On Friday, May 24^th, starting at 10.00, in the Auditorium Hall of the National University of Music in Bucharest, there will be a symposium on musicology coordinated by OlguțaLupu, with the generic title "Romanian music composition. Focus 2024". In fact, there are three research groups on Romanian music and three focuses on three very important Romanian creators. It is the 50th anniversary of Mihail Andricu's death, Cornel Țăranu would have been 90 years old, and Liviu Dănceanu would have been 70 this year.We bring them back to public memory through creations and various researches on their life and creation.

Until the final invitation for the International New Music Week, I dare to ask a question. We talk more and more about artificial intelligence and its role in our lives, in our everyday lives. In music, in your opinion, how can artificial intelligence help us, how can artificial intelligence come in, from all points of view?

As in everything that is human creativity or the area of human creativity, artificial intelligence can become a helpful tool and enhance our creativity or it can substitute it.

Right now we are just at the beginning, we don't know what artificial intelligence will mean in 20, 30 or 50 years. It may be that some areas of what we call the "Western tradition of thinking" will disappear altogether or merge with something else entirely. We cannot know. What is certain is that music will always say something if it starts from a soul. Whether it is the soul of a composer or a performer, that vibration is transmitted in a mysterious way and maybe this too can be simulated at some point, but I doubt it.

So I am open to all experiments. We can use, it's an unimaginable shortcut, a technological wormhole through which you can get very far. The problem is that artificial intelligence is also made based on different analyses that the whole human brain does, and eventually the spectrum of combinations becomes very narrow.

On top of that, we're talking about always connecting with an audience... and reaching out to the audience. How has the festival's audience changed in recent years?

Yes, and we have noticed that the audience structure has changed. Sure, we've been holding the banner high with new music for 33 years, only the composers are changing and their creations are changing. The new music of 33 years ago is no longer the new music of today. And so, the whole programme policy is a juggling act, a permanent acrobatics to preserve what we must preserve, to preserve the values of Romanian music, the values of new music, because we are not only a Romanian music festival - we also have guest performers. From Spain, for example, thanks to the collaboration with the Cervantes Institute, from other countries. We also have a concert by the Arcadia Quartet, which is funded, and we have a repertoire linked to a platform, Eco, of the European Alliance of Composers and Songwriters. We are connected in Brussels with this whole platform. So, it's really in the festival and a pleasure to listen to both Romanian music today and international music.

But, to come back... the music is changing. We owe it to the new generations to bring them forward, to motivate them to keep writing and because of that you will see that the structure of the programme is very diverse. We also have a cine-concert. That is, there are composers and performers at the same time creating music based on a silent film, in real time. We also have that 'My name is K', again a very interesting surprise. We also have electronic music. We also have instrumental theatre in the last concert on the 26^th of May at UNMB. The Ensemble Profil will present the premiere of a work by Adrian Iorgulescu, which is an instrumental theatre, with great instrumentalists, with Ionuț Ștefănescu, with Emil Vișenescu, with Alexandru Matei, Adriana Maier... These are opportunities that we are opening up and that, lo and behold, are well received.

Our audience has diversified. A lot of young people have become interested in new music. And we were surprised. We make a film for each festival and we see, in the last 5-6 years, that the halls are much fuller than they used to be. It is also one of the few new music festivals in Romania. I think we have to keep it going and be constantly alert, to feel like a seismograph changing in the perception of the public in Romania and beyond.

What moves, when it moves, where it moves...

That's right.

So the invitation has been issued! May 19^th - 26^th , the 33rd edition of the International New Music Week Festival, composer Dan Dediu in the Radio România Muzical studio... Thanks for coming!

We thank you too!