Wednesday, November 27^th , the Romanian Athenaeum will host a tribute concert in memory of composer and lawyer Nicolae Kirculescu, on the 121^st anniversary of his birth. Stephan Poen, the artistic coordinator of this project, will give us details on this event in an interview with our colleague Ioana Țintea.

Mister Stephan Poen, you're the moderator and artistic coordinator of the tribute event dedicated to composer and lawyer Nicolae Kirculescu. How did the idea of this project come into being and how did you envision the structure of the event?

The idea for this project came into being because of the National Association of Bars represented by president attorney dr. Traian Briciu and counselor attorney Danny Bârdan, figures of great culture and proffessional prestige who wanted to pay homage to the great artists that rose from the ranks of attorneys. The project was set in motion with this tribute concert in memory of maestro Nicolae Kirculescu, who was also an attorney in the Ilfov bar.

The concert will be held in association with the "George Enescu" Philarmonic. We had the enthusiastic support of its General Director, prof. Marian Cazacu, likewise partnered with Radio Romania Musical and TVR Cultural. With this program we wanted to offer the public Nicolae Kirculescu's most popular and artistically joyful works, as well as some lesser known pieces that add remarkable dimensions to the soul of his work; thus, there are orchestra and flute pieces such as Drumul izvorului, a pastoral, studies for the piano, as well as the famous Moment Muzical for the piano and orchestra. Attending will be the philarmonic orchestra conducted by Constantin Grigore, flautist Teodor Țîrlea and pianist Alexandru Mihai will be performing, and for an outstanding vocal segment we'll enjoy the participation of violinist Valentin Albeșteanu and pianist Valentin Cucu, who will play alongside actress Miruna Ionescu and missMarieta Bratu Kirculescu, the maestro's widow, a variety artist who has been living in Paris for almost forty years.

We'll hear vocal pieces in thebaroque, jazz or popular music hall styles.

So a diverse program.

A diversity that attests to Nicolae Kirculescu's remarkable personality, in a study that we've dedicated to him, we've defined him as a multifaceted pluridimensional musical creator. This study will be accessible to the public starting with the day of the concert on my blog, stephanpoenmuzicologie. Nicolae Kirculescu remains in our history, of our national music, as a unique creator, with a symphonic authenticity of great value in certain compositions, with profound chamber lyricism or sobre, massive baroque or stimulating, even avant-garde jazz, considering we're talking about pieces composed in the interwar period, and his hits, which are very popular, continue to delight the audience every time they're performed.

This concert will launch a project that will continue every year. There will be events dedicated to the memory of artists whose training and education were in legal studies and their professional experience was in law, in equal measure to their calling as composers, as performers. There are opera and operetta singers, conductors who will be celebrated by this project in the future.

During the course of your research for this concert, how did we discover or rediscover Nicolae Kirculescu? How do you think he managed to combine these occupations that seem so different, composer and attorney?

I studied his biography and from this existential parabola of his life what seemed significant were a musical aspect and a familial aspect. The musical aspect concerns the fact that at the age of three Nicolae Kirculescu showed a talent for the piano, which led to him studying the instrument at that young age. Through this he developed the personality of an accomplished pianist, so he perceived and rationaliyed music through this unique virtuosic complexity. On the other hand, he received an extraordinary education in his family.

His mother was a Hungarian countess from the Banffy family, while his father had roots in the family of the Colonna princes and the Colesi counts of Italy. He was educated based on a family tradition, in culture, spirituality, the fundamental ethical virtues of life. His intellectualism started developing in his adolescence and his high school years set him on the path of legal studies, but he also pursued a degree in music at the same time.

He studied at the Vienna Conservatory, then the Faculty of Law in Bucharest and at Sorbona he achieved a Doctor's Degree in Law, after which he studied dramatic arts. The complexity of his education, the depth of his musical knowledge, built on piano skills of uncanny virtuosity are the fundamental aspects that influenced the determinism of his destiny as an artist.