The George Enescu Festival: Hitting A High Note in Romanian Culture

The George Enescu Festival: Hitting A High Note in Romanian Culture

by Claudia Moscovici

The George Enescu Festival in Bucharest is not only a highlight in Romanian culture, but also one of the most exciting and biggest classical music festivals in Europe. Named after the prestigious Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu  (1881-1955), who is best known for his Romanian Rhapsodies, the festival focuses on Enescu’s work and offers the best in classical music, internationally.

Every two years, for several weeks during the month of September, Bucharest becomes the classical music capital of Europe. George Enescu and his friend and collaborator George Georgescu organized the first festival in 1958. Although the festival was banned for a period of time during Ceausescu’s dictatorship, it has been reestablished and grown since the Romanian revolution of 1989. It is organized by its Artistic Director Ioan Holender, Artexim, ArClub–The Center for Cultural Projects of the Municipality of Bucharest and the Foundation Art Production. 

In 2013, the festival will take place between September 1st and 28th, featuring concerts  of classical and contemporary music as well as opera and ballet. The festival’s motto, “Magic exists” (“Magia Exista”), emphasizes the beauty of classical music; its capacity to mesmerize all generations across cultural boundaries; its unifying force regardless of our political and ideological differences; its endurance throughout centuries, in a magic that still captivates us. Few products of the human mind, talent and creation have such a lasting power and positive effect on our cultures and psyches.

This year the festival will reach an even wider public through its publicity campaign on the American channel CNN (see ad below) that will air on May 19th, as well as the broadcast of some of its concerts live in cinemas across Romania, in cooperation with Grand Cinema Digiplex.

For more information about the highlights of the festival this year, please find below the George Enescu Festival program, found on their website,

http://festivalenescu.ro/calendar/events

• MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMII

• RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALE

• CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢII

• SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALET

• SERIA WAGNER

• MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

• CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

• ALTE EVENIMENTE

DUMINICĂ, 01.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : DANIEL BARENBOIM
Solist : RADU LUPU – pian

Program :
G. Enescu – Rapsodia română nr. 2 în Re Major op. 11
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 4 pentru pian şi orchestra în Sol Major op. 58
Sir E. Elgar – Simfonia nr. 2 în Mi bemol Major op. 63

DUMINICĂ, 01.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CAMERON CARPENTER

Ateneul Român
Recital CAMERON CARPENTER – orgă

Program :
“The Theatre of the Organ”

DUMINICĂ, 01.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

TIMIŞOARA

FILARMONICA “BANATUL” DIN TIMIŞOARA
Dirijor : MARTIN YATES
Solist : MATEI VARGA – pian

Program :
Tiberiu Olah – Armonii IV, Omagiu lui Enescu, concert pentru 23 de instrumente
Michael Hersch – Concert pentru pian şi orchestră (primă audiţie europeană)
T. Huillet – “Ombres – tribute to Debussy”
Rolf Martinsson – Concert pentru orchestră, op. 81

LUNI, 02.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul “ARCHAEUS”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : LIVIU DĂNCEANU

Program :
George Balint – Muzică pentru Archaeus
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (nr. 1, Geträumtes – für Martella)
Ştefan Niculescu – Triplum II
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (nr. 11B, Geläut für Günter Bialas)
Dan Buciu – Schițe pentru un autoportret
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (nr. 43A-a, Trostgesang für Heidemarie Merkl-Baroski)
Horia Surianu – Reverie Byzantine en Canon
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (49A – Saltarello)
Javier Darias – Ucanca
Aurel Stroe – Humoreske mit zwei durchblicken zum leeren

LUNI, 02.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului

STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Dirijor : DANIEL BARENBOIM

Program :
W.M. Mozart – Concertul pentru două piane în Mi bemol Major K365

Solişti :

DANIEL BARENBOIM
RADU LUPU

G. Verdi – “Quattro pezzi sacri” (Ave Maria; Stabat Mater; Laudi alla Vergine Maria; Te Deum)
Cu participarea CORULUI FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”
Dirijorul Corului : ION IOSIF PRUNNER

MARŢI, 03.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NEW GENERATION (I)

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti – Studioul de Operă şi Multimedia

NEW GENERATION (I) – Concert interactiv al tinerei generaţii de compozitori români

Interpretează : Ansamblul IconArts

Dirijor : GABRIEL BEBEŞELEA

MARŢI, 03.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

FILARMONICA “BANATUL” DIN TIMISOARA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : MARTIN YATES
Solist : MATEI VARGA – pian

Program :
Tiberiu Olah – Armonii IV, Omagiu lui Enescu, concert pentru 23 de instrumente
Michael Hersch – Concert pentru pian şi orchestră (primă audiţie europeană)
T. Huillet – “Ombres – tribute to Debussy”
Rolf Martinsson – Concert pentru orchestră, op. 81

MARŢI, 03.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Dirijor : MANFRED HONECK
Solist : YUJA WANG – pian

Program :
P.I. Ceaikovski – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în si bemol minor op. 23
D. Şostakovici – Simfonia nr. 5 în re minor op. 47

MIERCURI, 04.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NEW GENERATION (II)

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti – Studioul de Operă şi Multimedia

NEW GENERATION (II) – Concert interactiv al tinerei generaţii de compozitori români

Interpretează : Ansamblul IconArts
Dirijor : GABRIEL BEBEŞELEA

MIERCURI, 04.09

17:00

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC OF RUSSIA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : VLADIMIR SPIVAKOV

Solist :  SERGEY DOGADIN – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 3 pentru orchestră op. 27 ”Săteasca”
E. Chausson – Poemul pentru vioară şi orchestră op. 25
C. Saint-Saëns – Introducere şi Rondo Capriccioso op. 28
S. Rahmaninov – Simfonia nr. 1 în re minor op. 13

MIERCURI, 04.09

19:30

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

RADU LUPU

Ateneul Român
Recital RADU LUPU – pian

Program :
Fr. Schubert – Sonata pentru pian în La Major D 959
Fr. Schubert – Sonata pentru pian în Si bemol Major D 960

MIERCURI, 04.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

CLUJ

FILARMONICA DE STAT “TRANSILVANIA” CLUJ
Dirijor : JÖRG WIDMANN

Program :
Ulpiu Vlad – Simfonia I “Lumina drumurilor”
J. Widmann – Concertul pentru trompetă şi orchestră mică în Si bemol Major “Ad absurdum” (dedicată lui Sergei Nakariakov)
Solist : SERGEI NAKARIAKOV – trompetă
J. Widmann – Misa, pentru orchestră mare
Solişti : TEODORO ANZELLOTTI – acordeon cu claviatură
WILHELM BRUCK – chitară

JOI, 05.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NEW GENERATION (III)

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti – Studioul de Operă şi Multimedia

NEW GENERATION (III) – Concert interactiv al tinerei generaţii de compozitori români

Interpretează : Ansamblul IconArts
Dirijor : GABRIEL BEBEŞELEA

JOI, 05.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

FILARMONICA DE STAT “MOLDOVA” IAŞI

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : LEO HUSSAIN
Solist : MARINO FORMENTI – pian

Program :
Cornel Țăranu – Simfonia “Memorial”
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – Concertul pentru pian şi orchestră op. 188
Harrison Birtwistle – Earth Dances

JOI, 05.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRE DE PARIS

Dirijor : PAAVO JÄRVI

Program :
H. Berlioz – Uvertura la “Le Corsaire” H 101
B. Britten – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în re minor op. 15
Solistă : VILDE FRANG – vioară
C. Saint-Saëns – Simfonia nr. 3 cu orgă în do minor op. 78
Solist : THIERRY ESCAICH – orgă

VINERI, 06.09

13:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

“ARCADIA” STRING QUARTET

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti

Program :
Adrian Pop – Opt bagatele pentru cvartet de coarde
Ulpiu Vlad – Pe acest pământ însorit II
Martin Torp – Cantico delle creature
Dan Variu – Cvartet de coarde (primă audiţie)
Sabin Păutza – Cvartetul de coarde nr. 4 “Ludus Modalis”

VINERI, 06.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

FILARMONICA DE STAT “TRANSILVANIA” CLUJ

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JÖRG WIDMANN
Program :
Ulpiu Vlad – Simfonia I “Lumina drumurilor”
J. Widmann – Concertul pentru trompetă şi orchestră mică în Si bemol Major “Ad absurdum” (dedicată lui Sergei Nakariakov)
Solist : SERGEI NAKARIAKOV – trompetă
J. Widmann – Misa, pentru orchestră mare
Solişti : TEODORO ANZELLOTTI – acordeon cu claviatură
                    WILHELM BRUCK – chitară

VINERI, 06.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA ŞI CORUL OPEREI NAŢIONALE BUCUREŞTI

Opera Națională Bucureşti
“OTELLO” de Giuseppe Verdi

Dirijor : KERI-LYNN WILSON

Regizor : VERA NEMIROVA

Scenograf : VIORICA PETROVICI

Maestru de cor : STELIAN OLARIU

Asistent regie : IRINA MACOVEI 

Distribuţia :
Otello – PETER SEIFFERT
Desdemona – NICOLETA ARDELEAN
Iago – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Cassio – CRISTIAN MOGOŞAN
Roderigo –ANDREI LAZĂR
Ludovico – MARIUS BOLOŞ
Montano – IUSTINIAN ZETEA
Un herald – IONUŢ GAVRILĂ
Emilia – MARIA JINGA

VINERI, 06.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRE DE PARIS

Dirijor : PAAVO JÄRVI

Program :
G. Enescu – Simfonia nr. 1 în Mi bemol Major op. 13
S. Prokofiev – Simfonia nr. 5 în Si bemol Major op. 100

VINERI, 06.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

EUROPA GALANTE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : FABIO BIONDI

Program :
A. Vivaldi – Simfonia pentru orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Sol Major “Il Coro delle Muse” RV149
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în la minor RV357
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în mi minor RV279
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Si bemol Major RV383a
A. Vivaldi – Uvertura la opera “Ercole su’l Termodonte” RV710
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Fa Major RV284
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Re Major RV204
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Fa Major RV291

VINERI, 06.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

CRAIOVA

FILARMONICA “OLTENIA” DIN CRAIOVA

Dirijor: THEO WOLTERS (OLANDA)

Solişti:

LIVIU PRUNARU - vioară
CECILIU OVIDIU IŞFAN - violă

Program:
Gioacchino Rossini: Uvertura operei „La Cenerentola” („Cenuşăreasa”)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Simfonia concertantă în Mi bemol major pentru vioară, violă şi orchestră, K. 364
Antonín Dvořák: Simfonia a VIII-a în Sol major, op. 88

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

EUROPEAN CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
A. Iorgulescu – Kaleidoscope (p.a.)
M. Padding – Hop – Creation ECO 2012
T. Hearne – First World – Creation ECO 2012
Fr. Narboni – Embarquement pour l’outre-là – Creation ECO 2012
P-A Charpy – Brûlures – Creation ECO 2012 
Liviu Dănceanu – Hexaih op. 147 (p.a.)

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

“TAMMUZ” Quartet

Ateneul Român
Invitat : OLIVER TRIENDL – pian

Program :
R. Fuchs – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 2 în si minor op. 75
G. Enescu – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 2 în re minor op. 30
G. Fauré – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 2 în sol minor op. 45

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CORUL şi ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : BERTRAND DE BILLY
Dirijorul corului : IOSIF ION PRUNNER

Program :
A. Schönberg – Gurre-Lieder

Distribuţia :
Tove – VIOLETA URMANA
Waldemar – NIKOLAI SCHUKOFF
Klaus – JOHN DASZAK
Waldtaube – JANINA BAECHLE
Peasant – THOMAS JOHANNES MAYER
Narator – MARCEL IUREŞ

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul “LA VENEXIANA”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : CLAUDIO CAVINA

Corul de cameră “PRELUDIU” al Centrului Naţional de Artă “Tinerimea Română”
Dirijorul corului : VOICU ENĂCHESCU

Program :
Claudio MONTEVERDI: L’ORFEO (1607)

Distribuţia :
La Musica/Euridice: Roberta MAMELI
Orfeo: Furio ZANASI
Messaggera: Josè Maria LO MONACO
Proserpina/Ninfa: Monica PICCININI
Plutone: Raffaele COSTANTINI
Speranza: Josè Maria LO MONACO 
Caronte: Salvo VITALE
Apollo/Pastore: Luca Cervoni 
Pastore II – Spirito I: Alessio TOSI
Pastore III: Raffaele PE’
Pastore IV – Spirito II: Mauro BORGIONI

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

“MINGUET” Quartet

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
Gabriel Iranyi – Cvartet de coarde nr. 4 (2012) “…Innenräume, Verwebungen…”
Peter Ruzicka – Cvartetul de coarde cu soprană solo nr. 6 “Erinnerung und vergessen” (2008)
Solistă : SARAH MARIA SUN – soprană
Wolfgang Rihm – Patru studii pentru cvartet cu clarinet (2003)
Solist : JÖRG WIDMANN – clarinet

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul TRAIECT

Dirijor : Sorin Lerescu

Solist : Pierre-Yves Artaud – flaut
Program :
Tiberiu Olah – “Invocaţii” pentru 5 executanţi
Ede Terényi – “Traiectorie albă” pentru ansamblu
Laura Ana Mânzat – “Rondo neconvenţional” pentru ansamblu (p.a.a.)
Anatol Vieru – “Feuerwerk”  pentru flaut, vibrafon şi vioară
Elena Apostol – “Fairytale” pentru ansamblu
Sorin Lerescu – “Proportions II” pentru flaut şi ansamblu instrumental

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul “PROFIL”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : TIBERIU SOARE

Program :
Adrian Enescu – Audio Games
Viorel Munteanu – lucrare în primă audiție
Mihai Măniceanu – lucrare în primă audiție
Adrian Iorgulescu – lucrare în primă audiție
Octavian Nemescu – lucrare în primă audiţie
Tristan Murail – L’Esprit des dunes

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA ROMÂNĂ DE TINERET

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : LAWRENCE FOSTER

Program :
D. Dediu – Frenesia pentru orchestră op. 84 (2000)
J. Brahms – Dublul concert pentru vioară, violoncel şi orchestră în la minor op. 102
Solişti : PINCHAS ZUKERMAN – vioară
AMANDA FORSYTH – violoncel
M. Ravel – Rapsodie espagnole
M. Ravel – Pavane pour une infante défunte
M. Ravel – Alborada del Gracioso
M. Ravel – Bolero

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Orchestra “ARMONIA ATENEA”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : GEORGE PETROU

Program :
G.F. Händel – Alessandro HWV21 (Dramă muzicală în trei acte)
Libret : Paolo Rolli

Distribuţia :
Alessandro – MAX EMANUEL CENČIĆ
Rosanne – JULIA LEZHNEVA
Lisaura – LAURA AIKIN
Clito – PAVEL KUDINOV
Tassile – XAVIER SABATA
Leonato – JUAN SANCHO
Cleone – VASILY KHOROSHEV

LUNI, 09.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

WIENER AKADEMIE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : MARTIN HASELBÖCK

Program :
“THE INFERNAL COMEDY” – O crimă melodramatică
Scenariul şi regia : Michael Sturminger
Muzica : A. Vivaldi, J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart, L. van Beethoven etc.

Narator : JOHN MALKOVICH

Solişti :
LAURA AIKIN – soprană
BERNARDA BOBRO – soprană
ALEKSANDRA ZAMOJSKA – soprană

LUNI, 09.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CORUL şi ORCHESTRA OPEREI NAŢIONALE BUCUREŞTI

Opera Naţională Bucureşti
“OTELLO” de Giuseppe Verdi

Dirijor : KERI-LYNN WILSON

Regizor : VERA NEMIROVA

Scenograf : VIORICA PETROVICI

Maestru de cor : STELIAN OLARIU

Asistent regie : IRINA MACOVEI 

Distribuţia :
Otello – PETER SEIFFERT
Desdemona – NICOLETA ARDELEAN
Iago – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Cassio – CRISTIAN MOGOŞAN
Roderigo –ANDREI LAZĂR
Ludovico – MARIUS BOLOŞ
Montano – IUSTINIAN ZETEA
Un herald – IONUŢ GAVRILĂ
Emilia – MARIA JINGA

LUNI, 09.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA SINFONICA NAZIONALE DELLA RAI

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : Juraj Valčuha
Solistă : ANNA TIFU – laureată a Concursului Internaţional “George Enescu” – ediţia 2007

Program :
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 1 în Do Major op. 9
Philip Glass – Concertul nr. 1 pentru vioară şi orchestră (1987)
I. Stravinski – Suita pentru orchestră “Ritualul primăverii”

LUNI, 09.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

BRAŞOV

TRIO PINCHAS ZUKERMAN, AMANDA FORSYTH, ANGELA CHENG

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Sonata pentru vioară şi pian în Sol Major K 301
R. Schumann – Adagio şi Allegro pentru violoncel şi pian în La bemol Major op. 70
Z. Kodály – Duo pentru vioară şi violoncel op. 7
F. Mendelssohn – Trio pentru pian în re minor op. 49

MARŢI, 10.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CVARTETUL VOCES

Ateneul Român

Program :
J. S. Bach - Arta Fugii BWV 1080

MARŢI, 10.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA SINFONICA NAZIONALE DELLA RAI

Dirijor : JURAJ VALCUHA

Program :
O. Respighi – Poemul simfonic “Fontane di Roma”
Cl. Debussy – “Marea”, trei schiţe simfonice pentru orchestră
M. Ravel – “Daphnis şi Chloe” – fragmente din baletul in trei părţi imaginat de M. Fokin

MIERCURI, 11.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : RUDOLF  BUCHBINDER

Program :
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în Do Major op. 15
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 2 pentru pian şi orchestră în Si bemol Major op. 19
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 3 pentru pian şi orchestră în do minor op. 37

MIERCURI, 11.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA şi CORUL DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : ANTONIO PAPPANO

Program :
M. Ravel – “Une barque sur l’océan” (partea a 3-a din suita “Miroirs”) op. 43a
G. Enescu – Poemul simfonic “Vox Maris” op. 31
Solist : MARIUS VLAD BUDOIU – tenor
A. Dvořák – Simfonia nr. 9 în mi minor op. 95 “Din lumea nouă”

JOI, 12.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : RUDOLF  BUCHBINDER

Program :
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 4 pentru pian şi orchestră în Sol Major op. 58
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 5 pentru pian şi orchestră în Mi bemol Major op. 73 ”Imperialul”

JOI, 12.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA şi CORUL DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : ANTONIO PAPPANO

Program :
G. Verdi – Requiem

Solişti :
LIUDMYLA MONASTYRSKA – soprană
EKATERINA SEMENCHUK – mezzo-soprană
JOHAN BOTHA – tenor
RENÉ PAPE – bas

JOI, 12.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

TIMIŞOARA

ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “BANATUL” TIMIŞOARA
Dirijor : GHEORGHE COSTIN 
Solişti : MANUELA IANA-MIHĂILESCU şi DRAGOŞ MIHĂILESCU 

Program:
G. Enescu – Suita a II-a în Do Major op. 20
Fr. Poulenc – Concertul în re minor pentru două piane şi orchestră FP 61
B. Bartók –  Suita “Mandarinul miraculos” op. 19

VINERI, 13.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALECUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL D’ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : ENRIQUE MAZZOLA
Solist : CLAIRE-MARIE LE GUAY – pian

Program :
J. Ibert – Bacchanale
A. Honegger – Concertino pentru pian şi orchestră H 55
M. Ravel – Concertul pentru mâna stângă în Re Major op. 82
D. Milhaud – Le Bœuf sur le toit op. 58
M. Ravel – Suita nr. 2 pentru orchestră op. 57b “Daphnis et Chloé”

VINERI, 13.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : VLADIMIR JUROWSKI
Solist : ANIKA VAVIC – pian

Program :
N. Rimski-Korsakov – Uvertura Marele Paşte rusesc op. 36
S. Prokofiev – Concertul pentru pian şi orchestră nr. 3 în Do Major op. 26
A. Bruckner – Simfonia nr. 1 în do minor WAB 101

VINERI, 13.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRE de CHAMBRE de LAUSANNE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia concertantă pentru vioară, violă şi orchestră în Mi bemol Major K 364
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 40 în sol minor K 550

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ALTENBERG TRIO WIEN

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
D. Şostakovici – Trio nr. 1 în do minor op. 8 (1923)
G. Enescu – Trio în la minor (1916)
M. Ravel – Trio în la minor (1914)

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL D’ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : CRISTIAN LUPEŞ
Solist : ALISSA MARGULIS – vioară

Program :
A. Webern – Fuga (Ricercata) la 6 voci (după J.S. Bach – Ofranda Muzicală BWV 1079/5)
B. Bartók – Concertul nr. 2 pentru vioară şi orchestră SZ112, BB 117
G. Enescu – Simfonia nr. 2 în La Major op. 17

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : VLADIMIR JUROWSKI
CORUL ACADMIC RADIO
Dirijor : DAN MIHAI GOIA
Solist : LEONIDAS KAVAKOS – vioară

Program :
J. Brahms – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major op. 77
G. Enescu – Simfonia nr. 3 cu cor în Do Major op. 21

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRE de CHAMBRE de LAUSANNE

Ateneul Român
Solist şi dirijor : CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Serenada nr. 9 în Re Major K 320 “Posthorn” (primele patru părţi)
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 23 pentru pian şi orchestră în La Major K 488
W.A. Mozart – Fantezia nr. 3 pentru pian în re minor K 397
W.A. Mozart – Rondo pentru pian în Re Major K 485
W.A. Mozart – Serenada nr. 9 în Re Major K 320 “Posthorn” (primele trei părţi)

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul HYPERION INTERNATIONAL

Sala “Mihail Jora” a Societăţii Române de Radiodifuziune

Dirijor : Ilan VOLKOV
Program :
Maya Dunietz –  crea.
Liviu Ralea – « Periastron » pentru ansamblu şi sunete asistate de computer ( p.a.a.)
Horaţiu Rădulescu – Small Infinities Togetherness (1983) pentru global sources şi ansamblu (p.a.r.) – versiune scrisă şi dedicată Ansamblului Hyperion
Costin Cazaban – Calam pentru ansamblu şi sunete asistate de computer (p.a.r.)
Ilan Volkov/ Iancu Dumitrescu/ Andrei Kivu / Maya Dunietz/ Eran Sachs/ Yoni Silver / Haggai Fershtman/ Adam Sheflan – Intuitive Music – « pianissimo new project
Ana-Maria Avram – Spacetime-simetry (p.a.a.)
Iancu Dumitrescu – Early, before all times (II) (p.a.a.)
Ilan Volkov/ Iancu Dumitrescu/ Andrei Kivu / Maya Dunietz/ Eran Sachs/ Yoni Silver / Haggai Fershtman/ Adam Sheflan/  –  Intuitive Music 10 – Fortissimo New Project

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

13:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NUOVA MUSICA CONSONANTE

Sala “Mihail Jora” a Societăţii Române de Radiodifuziune

NUOVA MUSICA CONSONANTE-LIVING MUSIC FOUDATION (USA), VOX NOVUS (USA), CENTER OF COMPUTER RESEARCH IN MUSIC AND ACOUSTICS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY (USA), EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF PROMOTERS OF NEW MUSIC (ECPNM)

Interpretează :

GEORGETA STOLERIU – soprană

VLAD DIMULESCU – pian

CORINA BOLOLOI – vioară

FAUSTA DIMULESCU – pian

ŞERBAN NICHIFOR – violoncel

DANIEL MIHAI  - violonist

Program :

“Pioneers Songs” de Ned Hill, interpretata cu concursul autorului, un prestigios reprezentant al Culturii Americane.

“REZONANŢE ENESCIENE”
G. Enescu – Sonata nr. 1 pentru pian în fa diez minor op. 24
C-tin Silvestri – Piesă de concert nr. 3 pentru pian op. 25
R. Voisey – “Lament and Sorrow” pentru violoncel şi mediu electroacustic (p.a.)
V. Petculescu – “Reverberaţii” pentru violoncel solo
D. DaSilva – “Stabat” pentru violoncel solo (p.a.)
C. Chafe (USA) – “Free Motion” pentru violoncel şi mediu electroacustic
P. Constantinescu – “Cântec de adormit Mitzura”, lied pe versuri de Tudor Arghezi
S. McClellan (USA)– “Acolo”, lied pe versuri de Iulia Deleanu (p.a.)
M. Jora – “Ghicitoarea”, lied pe versuri de Tudor Arghezi
G. Enescu – “Eu ma duc, codrul ramane”, lied pe versuri populare
M. Marbe – “Ecoul unui omagiu” pentru vioară şi pian
G. Enescu – Balada pentru vioară şi pian
L. Alexandra – “Quasi Cadenza” pentru vioară solo
V. Cosma – “Concerto de Berlin” pentru vioară şi pian (p.a.)
M. Ciobanu – “Jurnal 99” pentru vioară şi mediu electroacustic

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

HARMONIUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA – OSAKA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : OTOMO NAOTO
Program :
A. Jolivet – Concertul pentru flaut şi orchestră de coarde (1950)
Solist : IONUŢ BOGDAN ŞTEFĂNESCU – flaut
Yasushi Akutagawa – Triptic pentru orchestră de coarde
G. Enescu – Octuor în Do Major op. 7

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

19:30

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Rheingold

Distribuţia :
Wotan – EGILS SILINS
Donner – VALENTIN VASILIU
Froh – MARIUS VLAD BUDOIU
Loge – CHRISTIAN ELSNER
Alberich – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Mime – ARNOLD BEZUYEN
Fasolt – GÜNTHER GROISSBÖCK
Fafner – SORIN COLIBAN
Fricka – ELISABETH KULMAN
Freia – ALEXANDRA REINPRECHT
Woglinde – JULIA BORCHERT

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

GHISLIERI CHOIR & CONSORT

Ateneul Român

“DEATH AND RESURRECTION” – între Baroc şi Clasicism
Un proiect al Fundației Royaumont (Franța) şi al Colegiului Ghislieri (Italia)
Dirijor : GIULIO PRANDI
Solişti : ROBERTA INVERNIZZI – soprană
SALVO VITALE – bas

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Regina Coeli în Do Major KV 108 (1771)
D. Perez – Mattutino de’ morti  (1774)

LUNI, 16.09

18:00

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Walküre

Distribuţia :
Sigmund – TORSTEN KERL
Hunding – GÜNTHER GROISSBÖCK
Wotan – EGILS SILINS
Sieglinde – MELANIE DIENER
Brünnhilde – PETRA  LANG
Fricka – ELISABETH KULMAN

LUNI, 16.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETSTOC EPUIZAT

VORTICE DANCE COMPANY

Opera Națională Bucureşti

Program :

“DRACULA”

Coproducţie : Vortice Dance Company, Opera din Macedonia
Regia şi coregrafia : Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço
Scenografia, videografia, sonoplastia : Rafael Carriço
Figurine : Jorge Liborio

Solişti : Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço, Maria Diogo, Rafaela Reis, Ângela Bacellar, Luz Bacellar,
Joana Puntel, Fábio Simões, Renato Vieira, Anna Kurlikova, Rita Pinheiro, Tiago Coelho

Regia tehnică : Nuno Martins
Designer de lumini, efecte audio-visuale : Luis Paz
Muzica : Wojciech Kilar, Philip Glass, S. Rahmaninov, Lou Reed

LUNI, 16.09

19:30

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Madrigal

CORUL NAȚIONAL DE CAMERĂ “MADRIGAL”
Ateneul Român

Program:
Hieronimus Tragoudistis din Cipru – Canonul cel Mare (Cântarea a noua) sec. XVI
Guillaume de Machault – Kyrie – La Messe de Notre Dame (1364)
Moment bizantin 1
Josquin des Prez – Gloria – Missa Pange lingua (cca. 1514)
Moment bizantin 2
Giovani Pierluigi da Palestrina – Credo – Missa Papae Marcelli (1567)
Moment bizantin 3
William Byrd – Sanctus – Missa a quatro voci (1592-1593)
Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) – Benedictus – Missa Dixit Maria
Moment bizantin 4
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) – Agnus Dei – Missa “O magnum misterium” (1572)
Moment bizantin 5
Dan Dediu – Exultate – lucrare în stil neogregorian/bizantin (p.a.)

MARŢI, 17.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

LUCERNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JAMES GAFFIGAN 
Solist : TRULS  MØRK – violoncel

Program :
A. Dvořák – Concertul pentru violoncel şi orchestră în si minor op. 104 (B 191)
A. Dvořák – Simfonia nr. 6 în Re Major op. 60 (B 112)

MARŢI, 17.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

DIE MÜNCHENER PHILHARMONIKER

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SEMYON BYCHKOV
Solist : GAUTIER CAPUÇON – violoncel

Program :
G. Enescu – Simfonia concertantă pentru violoncel şi orchestră în la minor op. 8
G. Mahler – Simfonia nr. 1 în Re Major

MIERCURI, 18.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

LUCERNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JAMES GAFFIGAN
Solist : FAZIL SAY – pian

Program :
G. Enescu – Issis (orchestraţie de Pascal Bentoiu – după schițele compozitorului)
Cu participarea Corului de cameră “PRELUDIU” al Centrului Naţional de Artă “Tinerimea Română”
Dirijor : VOICU ENĂCHESCUW.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 21 pentru pian şi orchestră în Do Major K.467
J. Haydn – Simfonia nr. 104 în Re Major H.1/104 “Londra”

MIERCURI, 18.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

DIE MÜNCHENER PHILHARMONIKER

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SEMYON BYCHKOV
Solist : KATIA şi MARIELLE LABÈQUE – pian

Program :
M. Ravel – Suita pentru pian “Le Tombeau de Couperin” (1918)
F. Poulenc – Concertul pentru două piane în re minor FP 61
C. Franck – Simfonia în re minor

JOI, 19.09

17:00

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Siegfried

Distribuţia :
Siegfried – STEFAN VINKE
Mime – ARNOLD BEZUYEN
Wotan (Wanderer) – EGILS SILINS
Alberich – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Fafner – SORIN COLIBAN
Erda – MARIA RADNER
Brünnhilde – CATHERINE FOSTER

JOI, 19.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETSTOC EPUIZAT

VORTICE DANCE COMPANY

Opera Națională Bucureşti

“SOLILOQUY – ABOUT WONDERLAND”

Regia şi coregrafia : Cláudia Martins and Rafael Carriço
Scenografia, videografia şi sonoplastia : Rafael Carriço
Costume : Cláudia Martins
Regia tehnică : Nuno Martins
Designer de lumini şi efecte audio-visuale : Luis Paz

Muzica : Phillip Glass, Maurice Fulton, Kronos Quartet, Daft Punk,
Nino Rota, Eric Satie, Oswaldo Ferrés, Camille Saint-Saëns, Arvo Pärt,
Billie Holiday, Claude Debussy, Charlie Chaplin

Solişti : Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço, Maria Diogo, Rafaela Reis,
Joana Puntel, Fábio Simões, Renata Vieira, Anna Kurlikova, Rita Pereira,
Luz Bacellar, Angela Bacellar

JOI, 19.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

ORADEA

FILARMONICA DE STAT ORADEA
Dirijor : ROMEO RÎMBU
Solist : ANTAL ZALAI – vioară (laureat al Concursului Internaţional “G. Enescu” 2011)

Program :
G. Enescu – B. Bartók

VINERI, 20.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

HESPERION XXI – LA CAPELLA REIAL DE CATALUNYA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JORDI SAVALL

Program :
La Dinastia Borgia

Concept artistic al proiectului : Jordi Savall & Montserrat Figueras 
Dramaturgia şi surse istorice : Josep Piera & Manuel Forcano 
Colaboratori : Josep Piera, Joan F. Mira, Vicent Ros 

Solişti : Adriana Fernandez, Pascal Bertin, José Hernández-Pastor,
Lluís Vilamajó, Francesc Garrigosa, Furio Zanasi, Daniele Carnovich,
Josep Piera, Francisco Rojas, Daniele Carnovich

VINERI, 20.09

19:00

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Ploieşti – MAXIM Quartet – Turneu naţional CLASSIC REMIX

Horia Maxim - pian

Mihaela Anica - flaut

Fernando Mihalache - acordeon

Săndel Smărăndescu - contrabas

PLOIEŞTI
Sala Filarmonicii “Paul Constantinescu”

Program:
Transcripţii şi aranjamente după lucrări de  F. Schubert, P. I. Ceaikovski, A. Glazunov, I. Stravinski, F. Liszt, Dan Dediu

VINERI, 20.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA NAŢIONALĂ RADIO

Sala Mare a Palatului

CORUL ACADEMIC RADIO
CORUL DE COPII RADIO
Dirijor : JAMES JUDD
Dirijorul Corului : DAN MIHAI GOIA
Dirijorul Corului de copii : VOICU POPESCU

Program :
B. Britten – War Requiem op. 66

Solişti :
MICHAELA KAUNE – soprană
KIM BEGLEY – tenor
ADRIAN ERÖD – bariton

VINERI, 20.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

SAINT MARTIN IN THE FIELDS

Dirijor : Sir. NEVILLE MARRINER

Solist : ANTONIO MENESES - violoncel
Program :
Sir E. Elgar - Introducere şi Allegro pentru orchestră de coarde op. 47

Sir E. Elgar - Concertul pentru violoncel şi orchestră în mi minor op. 85

Sir E. Elgar - Enigma Variation op. 36

VINERI, 20.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

SIBIU

HESPERION XXI
LA CAPELLA REIAL DE CATALUNYA 
Dirijor : JORDI SAVALL

Program :
La Dinastia Borgia

Concept artistic al proiectului : Jordi Savall & Montserrat Figueras 
Dramaturgia şi surse istorice : Josep Piera & Manuel Forcano
Colaboratori : Josep Piera, Joan F. Mira, Vicent Ros 

Solişti : Adriana Fernandez, Pascal Bertin, José Hernández-Pastor,
Lluís Vilamajó, Francesc Garrigosa, Furio Zanasi, Daniele Carnovich,
Josep Piera, Francisco Rojas, Daniele Carnovich

VINERI, 20.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

BACĂU – Sala “ATENEU”

FILARMONICA “M. JORA” BACĂU
Dirijor : OVIDIU BĂLAN
Solist : LEONEL MORALES – pian

Program :
S. Rachmaninov – Concertul nr. 3 pentru pian şi orchestră în re minor op. 30
I. Stravinski – Ritualul primăverii

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

LAURENT ALBRECHT BREUNINGER & THOMAS DUIS

Sala mică a Palatului

Recital :
LAURENT ALBRECHT BREUNINGER – vioară
THOMAS DUIS – pian

Program :
Cl. Debussy – Sonata pentru vioară şi pian în sol minor L 140
L. Vierne – Sonata pentru vioară şi pian în sol minor op. 23
G. Enescu – Sonata nr. 3 pentru vioară şi pian în la minor “în caracter popular românesc” op. 25
M. Ravel – Rapsodia pentru vioară şi pian op. 76 “Tzigane”

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

Recital JEAN-CLAUDE PENNETIER – pian

Recital JEAN-CLAUDE PENNETIER - pian
Ateneul Român

Program :
G. Fauré – Nocturna nr. 12 în mi minor op. 107
G. Fauré – Barcarola nr. 11 în sol minor op. 105
F. Busoni – Sonatina nr. 2 BV 259
G. Enescu – Sonata nr. 1 pentru pian în fa diez minor op. 24,1
Cl. Debussy – La cathédrale engloutie
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 3 pentru pian op. 18 “Carillon nocturne”
Cl. Debussy – 12 studii pentru pian (Caietul 2)
(7. Pour les degrés chromatiques; 8. Pour les agreements; 9. Pour les notes répétées; 10. Pour les arpèges composes; 11. Pour les sonorités opposées; 12. Pour les accords)

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

19:00

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Craiova – MAXIM Quartet – Turneu naţional CLASSIC REMIX

Horia Maxim - pian
Mihaela Anica - flaut
Fernando Mihalache - acordeon
Săndel Smărăndescu - contrabas

CRAIOVA

Sala Filarmonicii “Oltenia”

Program:
Transcripţii şi aranjamente după lucrări de  F. Schubert, P. I. Ceaikovski, A. Glazunov, I. Stravinski, F. Liszt, Dan Dediu

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA AMSTERDAM

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MARISS JANSONS
Solist : EMANUEL AX – pian

Program :
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 3 pentru pian şi orchestră în do minor op. 37
R. Strauss – O viaţă de erou op. 40

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

SAINT MARTIN IN THE FIELDS

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : Sir NEVILLE MARRINER
Solist : BORIS BROVTSYN – vioară

Program :
F. Mendelssohn – Uvertura “Ruy Blas”
F. Mendelssohn – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în mi minor op. 64
F. Mendelssohn – Visul unei nopți de vară (integral)

DUMINICĂ, 22.09

11:00

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA AMSTERDAM

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MARISS JANSONS
Solist : LISA BATIASHVILI – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Rapsodia nr. 1 în La Major op. 11,1
S. Prokofiev – Concertul nr. 1 pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major op. 19
S. Prokofiev – 3 selecţiuni din Suita “Romeo & Julieta”
I. Stravinsky – Suita “Pasărea de foc” (1919)

DUMINICĂ, 22.09

17:00

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Amurgul zeilor

Distribuţia :
Siegfried – STEFAN VINKE
Gunther – VALENTIN VASILIU
Alberich – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Hagen – ERIC HALFVARSON
Brünnhilde – PETRA LANG
Gutrune – ALEXANDRA REINPRECHT
Waltraute – ELISABETH KULMAN
Norn 2 – ELISABETH KULMAN

DUMINICĂ, 22.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

BRAŞOV

“VIRTUOZII” din BUCUREŞTI
Dirijor : MAXIM VENGEROV

Program :
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru două viori şi orchestră în re minor BWV 1043
Solişti : MAXIM VENGEROV – vioară
VLAD STĂNCULEASA – vioară
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 5 pentru vioară şi orchestră în La Major K 219 “Turkish”
Solist : MAXIM VENGEROV – vioară
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 40 în sol minor K 550

LUNI, 23.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

EVGENY KISSIN

Program:

Fr. Schubert – Sonata nr. 17 în Re Major D 850 op. 53

Al. Scriabin – Sonata nr. 2 în sol diez minor op. 19

Al. Scriabin – Studii op. 8, nr. 2 în fa diez minor, nr. 4 în Si Major, nr. 5 în Mi Major, nr. 8 în La bemol Major, nr. 9 în sol diez minor, nr. 11 în Si bemol minor, nr. 12 în re diez minor

LUNI, 23.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ROYAL STOCKHOLM PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SAKARI ORAMO
Solist : STEPHEN HOUGH – pian

Program :
A. Hillborg – Exquisite Corpse
J. Brahms – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în re minor op. 15
C. Nielsen – Simfonia nr. 2 op. 16 (FS 29) “The Four Temperaments”

MARŢI, 24.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

“VIRTUOZII” din BUCUREŞTI

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : MAXIM VENGEROV

Program :
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru două viori şi orchestră în re minor BWV 1043
Solişti : MAXIM VENGEROV – vioară
           VLAD STĂNCULEASA – vioară
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 3 pentru vioară şi orchestră în Sol Major K 216
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 5 pentru vioară şi orchestră în La Major K 219 “Turkish”
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 41 în Do Major K 551 “Jupiter”

MARŢI, 24.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALET

La Follia In William Shakespeare de Gigi Căciuleanu – PREMIERA

Spectacol de teatru coregrafic prezentat în cadrul “Întâlnirilor JTI”

Teatrul Bulandra – Sala “Liviu Ciulei”
Cu participarea extraordinară a actorilor Victor Rebengiuc, Coca Bloos
Decor, Costume, Imagine – Octavian Neculai
Muzica – Paul Ilea
Designer de lumini – Alexandru Darie
Asistent Coregraf – Lelia Marcu Vladu
Asistent Décor – Vladimir Iuganu
Asistent Costume – Sorina Iuganu
Actori : Cornel Scripcaru, Adrian Ciobanu, Ioana Macaria, Marius Chivu, Camelia Maxim, Daniela Nane, Anca Androne, Rodica Lazar, Antoaneta Cojocaru, Ioana Anton
DansActori : Ramona Barbulescu, Rasmina CalbAjos, Ioana Macarie, Diana Spiridon, Ioana Marchidan, Vanda Ştefănescu, Arcadie Rusu, Cristian Nanculescu, Adrian Nou, IstvAn TegLAs Alexandru Calin, Lari Giorgescu, Ştefan Lupu
Spectacol prezentat în cadrul Programului “Bulandra per Musica” şi produs de Teatrul Bulandra şiFundaţia Art Production

MARŢI, 24.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ROYAL STOCKHOLM PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SAKARI ORAMO
Solist : JULIAN RACHLIN – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 2 pentru orchestră în Do Major op. 20
I. Stravinski – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major
J. Sibelius – Simfonia nr. 1 în mi minor op. 39

MIERCURI, 25.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

CAMERATA SALZBURG

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : LOUIS LANGRÉE
Solist : HILARY HAHN – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Intermezzi op. 12
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 3 pentru vioară şi orchestră în Sol Major K 216
Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending (1920)
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 41 în Do Major K 551 “Jupiter”

MIERCURI, 25.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MIHAIL PLETNEV
Solist : VADIM REPIN – vioară

Program :
S. Prokofiev – Concertul nr. 2 pentru vioară şi orchestră în sol minor op. 63
P.I. Ceiakovski – Vals-Scherzo în Do Major op. 34
A. Glazunov – Anotimpurile op. 67

JOI, 26.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

Trio EVGENY KISSIN, SILVIA MARCOVICI & ALEXANDER KNIAZEV

Ateneul Român

Program :
Fr. Schubert – 4 improptus: op. 142  nr. 1 în fa minor, op. 142 nr. 3 în Si bemol Major, op. 90 nr. 3 în Sol bemol Major, op. 90 nr. 4 în La bemol Major
Fr. Schubert – Trio în Mi bemol Major op. 100

JOI, 26.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CORUL şi ORCHESTRA OPEREI NAŢIONALE BUCUREŞTI

Opera Națională Bucureşti
“OEDIPE” de George Enescu
Libretul : Edmond Fleg

Dirijor : ADRIAN MORAR
Regizor : ANDA TĂBĂCARU-HOGEA
Scenograf : VIORICA PETROVICI
Coregraf : RĂZVAN MAZILU 
Maestru de cor : STELIAN OLARIU

Distribuţia :
Oedipe – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Tiresias – HORIA SANDU
Creon – VICENŢIU ŢĂRANU
Păstorul – LIVIU INDRICĂU 
Marele Preot – MARIUS BOLOŞ
Phorbas – SORIN DRĂNICEANU
Străjerul – MIHNEA LAMATIC
Teseu – ŞERBAN VASILE
Laios – HECTOR LOPEZ
Iocasta – OANA ANDRA
Sfinxul – ANDRADA IOANA ROŞU
Antigona – SIMONA NEAGU
Meropa – ANTONELA BÂRNAT

JOI, 26.09

19:00

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Piteşti – MAXIM Quartet – Turneu naţional CLASSIC REMIX

Horia Maxim - pian
Mihaela Anica - flaut
Fernando Mihalache - acordeon
Săndel Smărăndescu - contrabas

Casa de Cultură a Sindicatelor

Program:
Transcripţii şi aranjamente după lucrări de  F. Schubert, P. I. Ceaikovski, A. Glazunov, I. Stravinski, F. Liszt, Dan Dediu

JOI, 26.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
CORUL FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”
Dirijor : HORIA ANDREESCU
Dirijorul corului : ION IOSIF PRUNNER 

Program :
Fr. Liszt – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în Mi bemol Major S.124
Solist : BORIS BEREZOVSKY – pian
G. Mahler – Simfonia nr. 2 “Resurrection Symphony”
Solişti : ANITA HARTIG – soprană
BERNARDA FINK – mezzo-soprană

JOI, 26.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

ARAD

FILARMONICA DE STAT ARAD
Dirijor : BORJAN CANEV
Solist : ANTAL ZALAI – vioară (laureat al Concursului Internaţional “G. Enescu” 2011)

Program :
G. Enescu – B. Bartók

VINERI, 27.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

VIOLONCELLISSIMO

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : MARIN CAZACU
Solişti : MARIN CAZACU – violoncel
            SIMINA IVAN – soprană

T. Albinoni – Adagio
S. Mercadante – Parola prima din Oratoriul “Ultimele şapte cuvinte” pentru soprană şi orchestră de violoncele
H. Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras nr. 1 pentru violoncele
H. Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras nr. 5 pentru soprană şi violoncele
J. Schrammel – Marş
A. Dvořák – Doloroso
C-tin Dimitrescu – Dans ţărănesc
J. Offenbach – Barcarola
J. Offenbach – Can Can
A. Piazzolla – Oblivion
A.Viloldo  – Tango “El Choclo”
A. Piazzolla – Libertango
Mozart / Mifune – Alla Turca Jazz

VINERI, 27.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : ANDREW LITTON
Solist : ALEXANDRA DARIESCU – pian

Program :

J. Brahms – Uvertura Academică în do minor op. 80
E. Grieg – Concertul pentru pian şi orchestră în la minor op. 16
P.I. Ceaikovski – Simfonia nr. 6 în si minor op. 74 “Patetica”

VINERI, 27.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

ACCADEMIA BIZANTINA

Ateneul Român

Dirijor şi clavecin : OTTAVIO DANTONE

Solistă: VIKTORIA MULLOVA - vioară

Program :
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în la minor BWV 1041
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară, clavecin şi orchestră (transcripţie BWV 1060)
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major (transcripţie BWV 1053)
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Mi Major BWV 1042

SÂMBATĂ, 28.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

THE SCHUBERT ENSEMBLE

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
Frank Bridge – Fantezie pentru cvartet cu pian în fa diez minor H. 94
G. Fauré – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 1 în do minor op. 15
G. Enescu – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 1 în Re Major op. 16 (1909)

SÂMBATĂ, 28.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

MURRAY PERAHIA

Ateneul Român
Recital MURRAY PERAHIA – pian

Program :
J. S. Bach  – Suita franceză nr. 4 în Mi bemol Major BWV 815
L. van Beethoven – Sonata nr. 23 în fa minor op. 57 “Appasionata”
R. Schumann – Faschingsschwank aus Wien op. 26
F. Chopin – TBA
F. Chopin – Scherzo nr. 2 în Si bemol Major op. 31

SÂMBATĂ, 28.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
CORUL ACADEMIC RADIO
CORUL DE COPII RADIO
Dirijor : CRISTIAN MANDEAL
Dirijorul Corului : DAN MIHAI GOIA
Dirijorul corului de copii : VOICU POPESCU 

Program :
G. Enescu – Capriccio pentru vioară şi orchestră (orchestraţie de Cornel Ţăranu după schiţele compozitorului)
Solist : DMITRY  SITKOVETSKY – vioară
G. Mahler – Simfonia nr. 3
Solist : JENNIFER JOHNSTON – mezzo-soprană

Interview about my novels The Seducer and Velvet Totalitarianism with Ziare.com (in English)

photo credit Romani Celebri

I’ve translated below parts of my interview with Diana Robu, which was originally published in Romanian in Ziare.com (Newspapers.com).

http://www.ziare.com/diaspora/romani-strainatate/comunismul-si-experienta-emigratiei-prin-ochii-unei-romance-stabilite-in-sua-1229866

1. Tell us a little bit about when and under what circumstances you left Romania.

1. I left Romania in 1981, at the age of 11. I haven’t returned until 2011, for the launch of my first novel Velvet Totalitarianism in Romanian translation, Intre Doua Lumi (Editura Curtea Veche). My father defected from the country two years before my mother and I legally immigrated to the U.S. He was a world-class mathematician and his boss was Zoia Ceausescu. She had let it be known that he wouldn’t be able to travel abroad to mathematical conferences anymore (because Nicolae Ceausescu was tightening the Iron Curtain). So he decided to take his chances, as several mathematicians had before him, and defect to the U.S. in the hopes that we would rejoin him soon. I filter aspects of our struggles to unite our family in my first novel, Intre Doua Lumi, as well as describing aspects of the adaptation to the U.S. (even though I fictionalize everything, of course, since I wrote a novel not a memoir).

2. What was your reaction when you returned to Romania, so many years later?

2. When I returned to Romania for my book launch decades later, in 2011, I was shocked and impressed to see how much the country has changed in its physical aspects, in its modernization, and in the standard of living. Of course, I only caught a privileged glimpse of Bucharest, from the perspective of an author on a book tour. So I didn’t get an inside glimpse, nor a global view of the country. It was a very brief and limited, but also very positive experience.

3. Tell us about your professional life and impression of the American academia.

3. In the academia, I taught in several departments–philosophy, art and comparative literature–since I love all of these fields. I tried to focus on the aspects of the profession that emphasize love of art, love of literature, and clarity of expression. I also found myself swimming against the currents of poststructuralism and deconstruction, at their peak in the U.S. when I was in grad. school, which I didn’t like for several reasons: 1. the writing was not clear and accessible to those who might want to understand it. 2. there was too much emphasis on the very technical “theories” and too little attention paid to the literature or art. 3. the whole field of cultural production became politicized–and I’m speaking of cultural politics–in “culture wars” that Harold Bloom and others address. Personally, I subscribe to Albert Einstein‘s wise saying: “If you can’t explain something clearly, then you don’t understand it well enough.” All in all, I’m glad to have had a solid formation in several branches of the arts and humanities in the American academia and even more glad to have left it behind and be able to write what I want, as I see fit.

4. What would you advise Romanians who might be interested in moving to the U.S.?

4. I’d advise any Romanian who is thinking about immigrating to the U.S. to visit the country for a considerable period first and find out about professional opportunities and day to day life. Just as it was easy for me to idealize Romania when I was a tourist there in 2011, it’s easy for anyone visiting the U.S. as a tourist to do the same. You never know how you’ll feel in a country until you actually live there, and find a place to work and a place to live. There are some professions, like medicine, where the degrees from one country don’t automatically get accepted in another. Many doctors from Romania have had to start from square one (medical school) or do something else related to medicine. It’s always more prudent to know exactly what you’re getting into before you make any drastic move.

5. Do you wish to visit Romania again?

5. Yes, I hope to return to Romania for the book launches of my art criticism book, Romanticism and Postromanticism, translated by the writer Dumitru Radu Popa, and for the launch of my second novel, The Seducer, which hasn’t been translated yet. During this period I hope to get to see more of the country outside of Bucharest, such as Drobeta Turnu Severin and Timisoara, where some of my family lives.

6. Is your first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism, autobiographical? If so, in what ways?

6. Velvet Totalitarianism, translated into Romanian by Mihnea Gafita under the title of Intre Doua Lumi, does incorporate some of our family’s struggles with the Romanian Securitate and the challenges of immigrating to the U.S. However, I fictionalized the entire plot, included a fictional spy thriller element (the Radu/Ioana plot line) and changed everything structurally to make the story work as a novel. Reality was only a point of departure (and research). But the novel is, after all, fiction.

7. You write books in several different domains. What leads you to do so? 

7. Since I was young, I loved several fields: art, literature and philosophy. The arts are, in fact, conceptually very closely related. They’re separated only by institutions and how they’re taught. But it’s natural to look at them, and appreciate them, together, which is exactly what I do. I write about the art I appreciate, internationally, on my art blog http://fineartebooks.wordpress.com. In 2002, I founded an international art movement, called postromanticism, devoted to celebrating verisimilitude, sensuality, and beauty in art. It was intended as an alternative, not a replacement, to more abstract traditions in art. I believe in pluralism, not dogmatism, in the art world, particularly since matters of taste and definitions of art are more or less subjective. I also spend part of each week working on my new novel, Fractals of a Murder. This will be my first murder mystery, but it’s not going to be genre fiction. I still prioritize strong and realistic characterizations. Finally, I write literary reviews from time to time about books I really like. I love writing about three fields rather than just one, or just a narrow specialization of one. Although in grad school I was encouraged to pursue a more focused specialization, I wholeheartedly resisted this idea. My own ideal is of the salonnieres and philosophes of the eighteenth century, who could write and converse about all aspects of the arts and humanities, often even science. I’ve lost any hope, however, in being able to know much about science or math. My parents, Henri and Elvira Moscovici, are both mathematicians, and I saw how different (and difficult) these fields are from the humanities. The best we can hope, in the arts and humanities, is to approximate the logic, simplicity and clarity that characterizes the field of mathematics.

8. How do you see Romania’s future?

8. I see Romania’s future as being increasingly open to international collaborations and the country as being more visible internationally. Of course, success stories like Herta Muller and Cristian Mungiu add to the country’s visibility. I predict that there will be more success stories like this. In the field of journalism and literature, Romania already has collaborations with Conde Nast Publishing, Forbes Magazine and others. I think such international collaborations in journalism will expand. Culturally, in every country groups and individuals create worthy art and literature and compete for limited consecration and power. The content of the art or literature are often inseparable from the institutions competing for influence. This is part of human nature and won’t change. The politics in Romania is the wild card. I don’t know enough about the ins and outs of politics in the country to make any predictions about it. It would be best for the country and its people, needless to say, if the infrastructure and laws of a democratic nation are taken seriously.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

How writers write fiction: Marching to the beat of your own drum

How writers write fiction: Marching to the beat of your own drum

by Claudia Moscovici

In an earlier article, entitled Why writers write, I explored some of the reasons why writers write fiction by looking into common misconceptions. I argued, for instance, that most writers don’t write in order to achieve fame or fortune, both of which are cosmically unlikely and therefore equally unlikely to last as primary motivations for writers past a very young (and naïve) age:

http://literaturesalon.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/why-writers-write-common-myths-about-being-a-writer/

Now I’d like to explore the process of writing (and misconceptions about it as well), by relying on my own experience as a novelist as well as by using as examples a few of my favorite fiction writers. Basically, I believe that there’s no rule, regimen or standard way of writing fiction: not only in terms of content and style (the diversity of fiction speaks for itself and renders this point quite obvious), but also in terms of the writing process itself.

The diversity in styles and approaches to fiction writing makes the job of those who teach Creative Writing un-enviably difficult. I’ve often read interviews with fiction writers and advice given writers offered by Creative Writing seminars, courses and websites that indicate certain standard procedures of writing fiction. Those usually include making a plot outline; writing a scheme for the structure of the short story or novel; disciplining and pacing yourself as a creative writer in specific ways. Some teachers, writers and courses even suggest that fiction writers need to isolate themselves from social media, email and other external “distractions” in order to concentrate better on writing fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I think such advice can be very helpful to many writers. Yet, at the same time, I still maintain that the creative writing process is as individual as writing styles. Each writer writes at his or her own pace and requires specific conditions.

There’s no doubt that all fiction writers need some uninterrupted periods of time to write fiction and a good place to do it, or A Room of One’s Own (1929), to allude to Virginia Woolf’s famous essay.  The reason for this is quite obvious: fiction writing requires stepping into imaginary situations and entering the minds of imagined characters. This delicate creative process would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in short spurts of time or with constant interruptions. Speaking from personal experience, this is part of the reason why my first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism (2009), which I wrote when I was an academic teaching philosophy and literature and a young mom of two small kids, took me ten years to write. Once my children became older and more independent and (especially) once I became a full-time writer and art critic, I had the right conditions to finish The Seducer (2011), my second novel, in only three years. But I wouldn’t take this common denominator of fiction writers—needing some uninterrupted chunks of time, a space to write and periods of peace and quiet—to an extreme, to suggest that fiction writers need to isolate themselves from social media or external input in order to write fiction. There’s a delicate balance between needing external input and isolating oneself to write fiction (or to create art, a similar creative process). Nobody can dictate to any writer or artist what that balance is because it’s as individual as the personality of each writer and his or her writing style.

In fact, probably many creative writers and artists find themselves in the position that Pablo Picasso describes to his  partner, Françoise Gilot: namely, that of needing external stimulation and contact with others as a rich source of inspiration for art, yet also, because of that, not having enough time to focus on each work of art. As Gilot recalls in her autobiography, Life with Picasso:

“Sometimes Pablo would begin a canvas in the morning and in the evening he would say, ‘Oh, well, it’s done, I suppose. What I had to say plastically is there, but it came almost too quickly. If I leave it like that, with only the appearance of having what I wanted to put into it, it doesn’t satisfy me. But I’m interrupted continually every day and I’m hardly ever in a position to push my thought right up to its last implication.’ […] I asked him why he didn’t shut out the world, and with it the interruptions. ‘But I can’t,’ he said. ‘What I create in painting is what comes from my interior world. But at the same time I need the contacts and exchanges I have with others.’” (Life with Picasso, Françoise Gilot, Anchor Books, New York, 1989, p. 123)

In our times, this balance between external contacts and inspiration and the solitude necessary to perfect any art form is probably even more difficult to reach because we live in an era of inundation from social media on a daily basis. Nowadays, fiction writers and artists rely upon the social media—Facebook, blogs, interviews with journalists–not only to speak about their art and share with readers (or viewers) what they’ve already produced, but also to find new sources of inspiration. For some fiction writers–particularly those who write historical fiction, true crime novels and psychological–  research and external input may be indispensable. Once again speaking from my own experience, when I wrote the historical novel Velvet Totalitarianism (Intre Doua Lumi), I had to read literally dozens of books on the history of Romania and about Romanian communism in order to be able to draw a historically accurate fictional depiction of that era. I couldn’t rely simply on inspiration or on fading childhood memories, since I had left the country at a relatively young age and wanted my novel to be partly based on actual facts, not only about invented characters and situations. When I wrote my second novel, The Seducer, on the subject of psychopathic seduction, I became even more dependent on external sources of information. I relied especially on blogs, since at the time there were relatively few books published on the subject of psychopaths and other social predators. Most of the information on the subject, particularly testimonials by victims which were extremely helpful, could be found on blogs such as lovefraud.com, which I read with great interest as background for writing fiction about a psychopathic seducer.

I believe that how you write—the process of fiction writing itself, starting from the space you right in; how fast or slow you pace yourself; the conditions and interruptions you choose or that are imposed upon you—does NOT determine the QUALITY of your fiction. But these conditions, and the balance you find as a fiction writer between isolation and external input—has a significant impact upon the QUANTITY and even the style of your fiction.  The best advice I can offer any fiction writer is to find his or her own balance that works for them rather than rely upon generic advice. I guess that’s a paradoxical way of saying the best advice I have is not to follow any general advice and choose instead what works for your situation, personality and style.  To support my case for the importance of marching to the beat of your own drum, I’d like to offer examples from some of my favorite writers.

1. Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) and La Comédie humaine

As a scholar of Comparative Literature specializing in 19^th-century French fiction, it’s not surprising that my main examples will come mostly from the French classics. One of my favorite novelists, Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), rivaled Napoleon in his ambition. In his wide-ranging work, La Comédie humaine, Balzac aimed to paint a literary portrait of “all aspects of society” during the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815-1848).  He wrote about 91 finished stories, novels and essays that capture almost every facet of French society and culture following the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Like many writers, his creative genius was spurred on by failure. After finishing school, Balzac apprenticed to become a lawyer, but decided pretty early on that he didn’t like the field. He then experimented with publishing, printing, becoming a critic and even a politician. All of these more traditional professions didn’t suit him, however.

Ultimately, Balzac decided to follow his dream of being a fiction writer. Given the scope of his literary ambition, he set for himself an extremely rigorous routine. He wrote at all hours of the day and night, staying awake by drinking many cups of strong coffee that ultimately damaged his health.  Throughout his life, Balzac’s difficult writing schedule—and lack of financial stability—strained his relationship with his family and even with friends. Despite writing dozens of novels and short stories, Balzac didn’t write quickly. He just worked long hours. Biographers document that he wrote approximately 15 hours a day. He took a nap after supper from 6 p.m to midnight, then woke up to write during the evening and night again. The author’s novels are greatly influenced by his life experiences, even though they’re not exactly autobiographical. Like Zola did after him, Balzac uses his observations of society to create fictional characters that offer a sweeping sketch of his era. His writing is a reflection of the balance he found between living and interacting with so many people from very diverse social backgrounds and the strenuous discipline he imposed on himself in order to fulfill his vast literary ambition.

2. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) and Madame Bovary (1856)

Of course, writing a little may take just as much discipline and time as writing a lot. At the other end of the spectrum (at least in terms of quantity of writing), my favorite French writer, Gustave Flaubert, was far less prolific than Balzac, even though he was equally ambitious. Flaubert achieved international fame for his unforgettable novel, Madame Bovary (1856), as well as for a beautiful, innovative yet starkly honest (and even cynical) mode of writing that the author polished to perfection. For Flaubert, style was everything.  Avoiding all clichés, he edited fastidiously his short stories and novels, pursuing what he called “le mot juste” (the right word). Perfecting style in a few works took as much work for Flaubert as sketching an entire era in nearly 100 works did for Balzac. In his correspondence, Flaubert states that this perfected style didn’t flow naturally out of him. He had to work hard, and edit constantly, to approximate it.

Like many writers, Flaubert encountered his share of challenges and setbacks. By the time of his death, however, he became known as the master of French realism (despite his lyrical style, which is also regarded by critics as the last echo of Romanticism). The publication of Madame Bovary (1856), the story of the disillusionment and eventual suicide of a provincial doctor’s wife who (fruitlessly) seeks love and meaning through a series of adulterous affairs, was greeted by the public with scandal rather than admiration. When chapters of the novel were published in La Revue de Paris (October 1956 to December 1956), Madame Bovary was attacked as “obscene” by the public prosecutor. Flaubert became acquitted, however, the following year. Afterwards, the novel quickly became a best seller, going far beyond a succès de scandale. By the time of his death, Flaubert was considered as one of the greatest French writers of the century (and he still is).

No rule, advice or measure could apply equally well to a writer like Balzac as to a writer like Flaubert, except perhaps the very general tenet that each found his own balance and discipline in the process of writing to suit his writing style, personality and literary ambition.

3. Snippets of the interview with Romanian writer Razvan Petrescu: Marching to the Beat of your own Drum

Perhaps no writer shows the relativity of the writing process—and even casts doubt upon the boundary conventionally drawn between fiction and nonfiction, or fact and imagination—as my friend, the Romanian writer Razvan Petrescu. I have already written about his latest collection of short stories in the following article:

http://literaturesalon.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/razvan-petrescus-rubato-the-coordinates-of-world-class-romanian-fiction/

This article has been translated and published in Romania on Editura Curtea Veche’s blog:

http://www.curteaveche.ro/blog/2013/01/15/rubato-de-razvan-petrescu-coordonatele-unei-proze-romanesti-de-clasa-mondiala/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rubato-de-razvan-petrescu-coordonatele-unei-proze-romanesti-de-clasa-mondiala

To continue our discussion, I recently interviewed him about his books, his life and the writing process for a series of articles published in the Romanian magazine Scrisul Romanesc and the blog Agentia de Carte. To my mind,  Razvan Petrescu exemplifies the meaning of the English expression “marching to the beat of your own drum,” both as a person and as a writer (since the two aspects are, after all, intertwined). What struck me most about his interview, from which I’m translating only a few bits and pieces here, is the fact that his nonfiction (meaning his answers to my very traditional, journalistic questions) reads like some of the best fiction I have ever read. His first answer, to my very standard question “When did you begin writing fiction?” reminds me of lines from one of my favorite novels, Lolita (1955), by the man I consider the greatest American novelist, the Russian-born Vladimir Nabokov. In this beautiful and lyrical passage of the novel, the narrator, Humbert Humbert introduces Annabel, his first love and the precursor to Lolita: “All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because the frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each others soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do” (Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, New York: Vintage International, 1997, p. 12).

Although Petrescu has a style of his own, of course, like Nabokov, he’s a master of style, whether he writes fiction or nonfiction. Speaking of which, if you believe that any course, author or teacher can draw a sharp distinction between fiction and nonfiction or tell any creative writer how to write, you may change your mind after reading parts of this humorous, honest, chaotic and–above all—unique and original interview with the writer and editor Razvan Petrescu. Enjoy the (non)fiction!

Claudia Moscovici: When did you begin writing fiction?

Razvan Petrescu: Around the age of 15, when I fell in love for the third time. She had long, wavy red hair and well-formed breasts. My wonder knew no bounds when I was faced with this enigmatic pyramidal structure. I was fascinated by other zones and became absent-minded. Which didn’t provoke any particular happiness, given the fact that I was still expected to do various practical things, which included painting the walls, as I was dreaming with my hand shielding my forehead. I was thus overcome by a terrible love. It was autumn, the leaves were falling, the baby birds were hatching, while I was meandering in front of her house in my high school uniform with the number of my school inscribed on my left arm, my face turning melancholic-green with despair. She wasn’t in love with me yet. She would become swept in the feeling only at the moment when it left me and, because I had already read a whole slew of books (especially police thrillers and stories about submarines), I started writing her verses with an eye makeup pencil on a little notepad. I would read them alone at home and would cry seeing how much pain those words stolen from maximum suffering could provoke. When I read them again three years later, I couldn’t believe that I was able to write such idiocies and was overcome with a boundless sense of shame.

CM: What inspires you to write fiction?

RP: Almost anything. The blade of grass upon which climbs a little insect. The insect falls over, moves its little legs, I step on it with my shoe, a shoe meant for such events. The purplish clouds crossed by planes at sunset on the Paris-Slobozia route awaken in me aviatico-poetic catastrophes. I see the terrified passengers placing on their oxygen masks, screaming in them, waving their arms. The oxygen doesn’t work, the airplane changes course at the last moment exactly above IOR Park, over a little pond upon which floats a little ship with a hole in it. They all die of asphyxiation on the plane, while those on the ship drown in the greenish waters. … Usually I transform banal events with regular people into tragedies, or vice versa. I’m attracted to the dramatic, the grotesque, the painful. I describe what I observe, adding as many imagined things as possible to make the story more plausible, or conversely, more absurd.

CM: Who are the writers that inspire you most?

RP: Bach, Chekhov, Céline, Salinger, John Osborne, Raymond Carver, Mozart, Miles Davis, Donald Bartholomew,  Joyce, Faulkner, Schubert, Mahler, Lester Young, Cortazar, Buzzati, Garcia Marquez, Truman Capote, Coleman Hawkins, Chopin, Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, Haneke, Pachelbel, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Beethoven.  The harmony of the piano. The king of the flies. Friday or the languages of the Pacific. … In order not to become mixed up, I’ve gotten into the habit of including my answer to this same question, which I’ve been asked by others and asked myself in other contexts, adding to it nonsensically titles, names, kinds, in order to leave an impression of culture pure and simple. But, above all, I do this in order to avoid boredom…

CM: No fiction is strictly autobiographical, but did you express any personal elements in your fiction. If so, which ones?

RP: I didn’t express anything, for the simple reason that everything I write and experience is fiction. In other words, if I included autobiographical elements in my fiction, they’re fictional. Example: the fact that I studied medicine. I didn’t. I wasn’t a doctor. I never lived in Bucharest. I didn’t go to high school number 43. I didn’t try to sleep with the high school beauty queen in ninth grade. I didn’t have a friend in kindergarten that died, and I didn’t go to her funeral. … I wasn’t a writer, I didn’t have a job, and thus I didn’t work at the magazines “The Word,” “Amphitheater,” the “Literature Museum,” the “Ministry of Culture,” All Publishing, Rosetti, Brukenthal and Curtea Veche Publishing….

CM: To follow-up my last question, what is the relation between your personal life and your life as a writer?

RP: It’s one of total harmony. They overlap. Any object or being that overlaps with another is happy. Given that I don’t need a job in order to make a living, I write all the time, especially at night. I’ve dedicated my life to literature for well over two decades. My personal life has been fulfilled in being a writer and vice versa. I had the good fortune of receiving good money by selling books and, also, through translations. Last month, when I signed a contract for the translation of my most recent book in Macedonia, they offered me almost 150 Euros. I had to renounce the retribution, since I know my value and it’s not quite so big. If I had accepted the payment for the author’s rights I’d have lost it completely, so I asked the editor to allow me to give him money.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

Sandy Chila’s timeless classics: “Avec ton Amour” and “A Light that Dances Solo”

Sandy Chila

The music industry is (in)famous for hits that quickly become yesterday’s news. Most pop songs are played on the radio for about two to three months. During that short period of time, we hear them so often that we tire of them. Afterwards, we rarely run across those songs again: except, perhaps, years later on “oldies” stations. It’s rare and remarkable to come across hits that are so memorable, melodious and catchy that they have a staying power that renders them timeless classics. I’d count, for instance, many of the Beatles’ hits in this category, along with Frank Sinatra’s and Nat King Cole’s classic love songs, which are, indeed… unforgettable.

Sandy Chila’s songs, “Avec ton Amour” and “A Light that Dances Solo” have the quality and beauty of such timeless classics. It’s almost impossible to look away from the Tacori jewelers commercial, “Cupid’s arrow,” that features Chila’s song, “Avec ton Amour.” The song is both mesmerizing and memorable.

Bilingual and multicultural like its composer, “Avec ton Amour” features both French and English lyrics to a melody that harks back to the best songs of Salvatore Adamo or Frankie Valli. Making such a comparison takes nothing away from the song’s originality and uniqueness, of course. In fact, some of the most successful contemporary composers and singers—including Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones and Adele—incorporate elements from the best pop music of previous decades while also rendering them new. Timelessness in pop music, to my mind, implies a certain continuity, not only originality. The most talented new composers and musicians don’t fully reject the past or try to reinvent the wheel. Rather, they integrate previous popular musical traditions—be it swing, jazz, Latin music or French varitetes–into their original and quirky compositions and style. Sandy Chila represents the best of both worlds: he blends new and former musical styles as well as several cultural traditions that have inspired him.

http://factoryent.wordpress.com/category/press/

As Factory Entertainment (see above), the company that represents Chila states, “the musical journey of Sandy Chila (pronounced “key-la” has taken him around the world and back again.” Chila was born in Monaco, lived in Cairo and relocated to Southern California. Influenced by musical styles considered opposites—such as classical music and hard rock (he toured and recorded for Gilby Clarke of Guns N’ Roses)—Chila’s own talent shines in timeless love songs that have captured the attention of Tacori, one of the most prestigious jewelry companies in the world.  Although the signature Tacori “golden arrow” commercial—so elegant and simple, a flirtatious dance of diamond bands—includes only a tantalizing snippet of Chila’s romantic song, “Avec ton Amour”, it’s definitely worth listening to the entire song, which is available on amazon.com and other online music stores:

Avec ton amour:

http://www.amazon.com/Avec-Ton-Amour/dp/B003LUS80A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354231555&sr=8-1&keywords=Sandy+Chila

A light that dances solo:

http://www.amazon.com/A-Light-That-Dances-Solo/dp/B003LUU0EW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354242407&sr=8-1&keywords=A+light+that+dances+solo+Sandy+Chila

Memorable, poetic lyrics sung in both English and French combine with a catchy and sophisticated melody to create a song that touches the heart and lingers on your mind. Part of “Avec ton Amour”’s staying power, I believe, can be explained in terms of its international flavor. I’m referring not only to its bilingual lyrics, but also to the various musical traditions it mixes and echoes–which range from Salvatore Adamo’s classics to tango—in an unforgettable song that appeals to fans of sensuality, melody and romance.

Helena Paper House

Chila’s talents are as wide-ranging and versatile as his musical style. He’s a singer, composer and producer. He’s created the music score for the independent films “Open House” (2007) and “Overloaded” (2009). More recently, he has collaborated with the beautiful and talented young singer, Helena Lalita, producing her songs “Sunlight” and “Paper House,” signed by Warner Brothers Records. I’m certain that Chila’s talents will shine through more and more in hit songs that will reach—and seduce—a mainstream audience.

http://www.HelenaLalita.com/

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

How to Make your Novel into a Movie (by Claudia Moscovici)

Memoirs of a Geisha

 

I don’t know of many authors who wouldn’t want to make their novels into a movie. There are probably three main reasons why writers would love to see their fiction turned into film: a) vanity,  b) money (a novel usually sells better if it gains more visibility as a movie) and c) the most important reason, I believe, is the fact that cinema is the most comprehensive art, which includes several branches of the arts. Great films have the narrative quality of fiction; the visual appeal of photography; a top-notch music score; a good script and quality, character-based acting that, ideally, competes with theater.  If you want it all, as a fiction writer, you somehow have to find a way of collaborating with an accomplished movie director. I’d like to describe below some of the options of collaboration available between fiction writers and movie directors.

Memoirs of a Geisha movie

1)  Sell movie rights to your novel to a top-notch film studio

The baseball player Lefty Gomez is famously quoted as saying “I’d rather be lucky than good”. If you’re a fiction writer or a movie director, however, you definitely need to be both lucky and good to succeed. If you’re good without being lucky you won’t go far in life, unfortunately. If you’re lucky but mediocre, your star will fade quickly, as any fad does. The most successful novels that have been made into mainstream movies, I believe, usually had a winning combination of good fortune and quality writing. If you succeed in publishing your novel with a good publisher–a rather challenging process which I already described in my earlier article “How the Publishing Process Works in the U.S.” (see  link below)–and if that publishing house decides to invest most of its annual promotion budget into your novel, then you have a decent chance of selling movie rights to your book.

http://literaturesalon.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/how-the-publishing-process-works-in-the-united-states-a-writers-perspective/

Because each step I alluded to is very difficult, however, very few novels sell movie rights and even fewer are actually made into successful movies. One of the best examples of a novel that overcame all these hurdles is Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. Published with Alfred A. Knopf in 1997, this masterfully narrated historical novel about a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan around WWII  became a bestseller internationally. The book sold over 4 million copies and was translated into 21 languages. Columbia Pictures bought the film rights. The movie by the same name, directed by Rob Marshall and produced by Steven Spielberg, debuted in December 2005, staring the beautiful and talented Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.  Well-acted and with spectacular, painterly scenes, the movie cost $85 million dollars to produce but, being a box office hit, made double that much in profits (over $162 million dollars).

Although there was some controversy related to the movie—a former geisha who offered Golden some background information sued him and his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf—overall, this novel is a rare and huge success story which, unfortunately, few writers can boast of. If your novel doesn’t sell tens of millions of copies worldwide and doesn’t get movie rights with a major Hollywood studio–yet you still want to see your novel made into a movie–then what do you do? Your best option is to try to find an appropriate independent film director on your own. If you choose to pursue this avenue, however, you have to exercise caution. Independent movies can be the incredibly powerful and artistic. They’re often more dramatic and character-driven than mainstream cinema. Unfortunately, the field of independent cinema is also a breeding ground for scam artists and frauds.

2)   Collaborating with an independent film director

There’s no shortage of talented independent film directors out there. The challenge consists of finding the right one for your fiction and especially getting the budget necessary to make your film. I’ll have to say upfront that I caution writers against collaborating with film directors that charge the author and/or actors to fund their film. Not only do you risk losing your life savings in this manner, but also your film, even if it is produced, will probably not have a decent distribution network. Likewise, be aware of the sad reality that not all film producers will be honest or upfront about charging authors money. The most dangerous, I believe, are those that string you along and mislead you by either a) asking for incremental “reasonable” sums of money for the project that eventually add up to a huge amount or b) getting you emotionally and creatively invested in the project first, then demanding money later (a classic bait and switch technique of conartists). I think if you’re an author who has large discretionary funds at your disposal, then it’s fine to pay a movie director to make your novel into a movie: as long as both sides are honest and open about what they expect and will get from each other. But I suspect that few authors have large discretionary funds at their disposal, which would be necessary, since making movies is a costly process. If you’re not independently wealthy, as most writers aren’t, then what do you do? This is what I’ll explore next.

Although creative compatibilities between the writer and the film director are most important, without sufficient funding they can’t make a movie. I have not discussed the issue of funding when addressing the rare case of bestselling fiction being made into a blockbuster movie because in such a situation lack of money is obviously not an issue. Insufficient funding is, however, one of the main hurdles in the business of independent film. Generally speaking, there’s an excess of talented writers, independent movie producers and actors and a relative scarcity of funds for them.  Fortunately, there are some funding options available to independent film producers. 

Cristian Mungiu

a)   Public art grants

Public art funding is especially common in Europe. I’ll use Romanian film directors as an example, not only because new Romanian cinema has gained international renown during the last decade, but also because  it relies primarily upon public art grants. The National Center for Cinematography (Centrul National al Cinematografiei) and the European Media Program give annual awards to talented Romanian directors. These grants are competitive (many more directors apply than are awarded grants) and the funding is usually far more modest than the budget of mainstream Hollywood cinema. An independent film usually gets about one million Euros, sometimes less, while Hollywood movies require tens of millions of dollars.

4 months 3 weeks and 2 days by Cristian Mungiu

Even with more modest funding, however, Romanian directors have produced award-winning films that are incredibly dramatic and character-driven. Earlier I reviewed on this blog several such movies, directed by Cristian Mungiu, Vali Hotea and Bogdan George Apetri. Their grants were often supplemented by Western European film grants.  In addition, universities often award film grants, as do cultural centers and institutes, such as ICR (the Romanian Cultural Institute). It is a great privilege for a fiction writer to collaborate with an independent film producer that has the capacity, talent and connections to receive such film grants and to make the most of them by producing great movies. In the best-case scenario, the talents of each complement and enhance the other and the final result is even better than the sum of the parts (fiction and film). 

Outbound (Periferic) directed by Bogdan George Apetri

But even this option is relatively rare, particularly in the United States. Art grants for independent films are far more common in Europe than in the U.S. So what are some viable options for American writers and film directors?

Sundance Film Festival

b)   Private non-profit funding for independent films, such as the Sundance Film grants and crowd funding, such as Kickstarter

Sundance Film Grants

In the U.S., public funding for independent films–aside from the modest grants awarded by universities mostly to their students—is meager and rare. There are, however, some private grant sources worth mentioning. The most notable among them are the Sundance Film grants offered by the Sundance Institute. The renowned actor and film director Robert Redford founded this non-profit organization in 1981. In 1985 the institute took over the United States Film Festival. Its Feature Film Program supports new independent screenwriters and directors (or “Lab Fellows”). The winners of these grants get to shoot their films under the tutelage of established film directors and cinematographers. The Sundance Institute also has similar grants for documentary films and film music.  Through its combination of funding, studio experience and guidance from seasoned professionals, the Sundance programs offer a wonderful opportunity to talented new film directors. Many independent movies make the film festival circuit in the U.S. and Europe, the most prestigious of which are the Cannes and Sundance film festivals.

Kickstarter crowd funding

Kickstarter crowd funding

Another avenue for funding, particularly in the U.S. where, as mentioned, public funds are relatively few, is crowd funding. Kickstarter has become a popular source of funding for independent films. As the article below states, its films won 12 awards at the Sundance Film Festival 2012:

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/reporting-back-kickstarter-at-sundance-2012

Launched in 2009 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler, Kickstarter is a collective yet private way of investing money in film projects that people believe will make a profit. Film directors present a project and stipulate a deadline for raising the funds. If they can’t raise the funds by that date, then they don’t collect any of the pledged donations. The donations are made via Amazon payments and the platform is international (anyone in the world can propose projects and pledge donations). Kickstarter takes 5 percent of the profits made. The main downsides of Kickstarter are lack of enforcement and minimal quality control. The projects are selected based on their stipulated ability to make a profit, not necessarily based on their artistic quality. Also, there’s no way, as of yet, to enforce that those who propose certain projects will deliver them or that they’ll meet the standards of the individuals who funded them.

Follow your dreams but stay grounded in reality

For fiction writers and film directors alike, huge mainstream success is usually not something that comes automatically, if at all. Success in general depends on maximizing options, making good choices and being adaptable to change. No author can bank on having their novel become an international bestseller. Similarly, no independent movie director can count on having their movie become a blockbuster and win prestigious awards. The odds of both are equivalent to winning the lottery. To go back to my modified quote by Lefty Gomez, you have to be both lucky and good to succeed, particularly on such a grand scale. Fortunately, in many respects, both writers and movie directors make their luck—or at least maximize their chances for success–by exploring the best and most realistic options for a fruitful collaboration that turns fiction into film. 

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

The Cube has landed (in bookstores)! Nat Karody’s new science fiction novel

The Cube by Nat Karody

The Cube, a new novel by Nat Karody, has landed (in bookstores)!

http://www.amazon.com/Cube-Novel-Nat-Karody/dp/0761859829/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350085632&sr=1-1&keywords=Nat+Karody+The+Cube

 

Were you disappointed by the ending to the series Lost? What follows is a story with as intricate a mythology as Lost’s but with an important difference: in the end it is all explained mechanistically, without resort to mysticism or religion. At the conclusion of the novel, the following summary of the core mystery, taken from the opening chapter, will be perfectly sensible: The Oopsah told a story, a majestic, exalted, beatific story of the coming of the end times and the rise of the Controller.

He learned how the world would end, who would destroy it, and how he, Zranga, could prevent it. He learned that he had been appointed by destiny – by the Controller himself – to carry out this mission. But above all he learned of the existence of a perfect being, the demigod Celeste, trapped beyond time in a cycle of eternal death. Only Zranga could rescue her, and to do this he had to place a giant door on the bottom of the Silent Sea, and kill the Great Man. Read on to found out how far Ivy Morven will go to stop Tobor Zranga from realizing his destiny, and how this alternative universe is bizarrely structured so that the most rational acts are the most extreme.

The Cube is well-written, ingeniously crafted and has great character development. Although clearly a science fiction narrative, The Cube also transcends its genre, to attract a broad audience. It tells the Romeo and Juliet story of a  young couple from adjacent sides of a  cubic planet who meet at an edge and develop a relationship in the midst  of a war that threatens to  destroy the planet. The story is unique  in creating an alternative  universe from first principles:  all matter is   oriented in one of the six Euclidian directions.

This simple deviation  from our own universe leads to the creation of cubic celestial bodies and   allows a reimagination of  transportation, power generation, warfare,   architecture, and lovemaking, among other things. As an example, the  political conflict   leading to war is that both inhabited sides of the   planet generate hydroelectric power by draining a large body of water on   one side   through edge sluices, a cheap and easy source of energy that will ultimately destroy the planet if the water is drained too far.

What  drives this story is the relationship of the two main characters,  a girl  escaping from a classified weapons facility with terrible secrets she   refuses to share, and a rural boy who literally catches her  when she leaps   over the edge and soon learns he is the target of international espionage.   The novel is organized around a series of   revelations of the girl’s   secrets culminating with an answer to the ultimate question – who is  Celeste?

As you can probably tell even from my brief description, The Cube is a multidimensional narrative (pun intended!) that could simultaneously described as a science fiction novel as well as a moving love story and a dystopic utopia fiction,  similar  to George Orwell’s 1984.  You can discover this alternative universe, governed by different laws of physics but similar political motivations and machinations for power as in our world, on the links below:

http://www.amazon.com/Cube-Novel-Nat-Karody/dp/0761859829/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350085632&sr=1-1&keywords=Nat+Karody+The+Cube

Claudia Moscovici, literaturesalon

Interview with BookMag about my novels Velvet Totalitarianism and The Seducer

The Seducer by Claudia Moscovici

Below is the interview with Virginia Costeschi, published in Romanian on BookMag, on the link below:

http://www.elefant.ro/bookmag/claudia-moscovici-n-am-putut-rezista-impulsului-de-a-transforma-dragostea-pentru-lectura-in-dragostea-pentru-scris/

Virginia Costeschi: You are a complex writer; you have nonfiction books, a poem volume, and novels. You teach, you started the postromanticism movement. How do you manage this creative diversity?

Claudia Moscovici: If judged by scholarly standards of specialization, I’m seen as having wide-ranging  and diverse interests: in art, poetry, philosophy and literature, exactly as you state. My daughter, however, who plans to study chemistry in college, tells me my interests are very narrow. All of them fall under “arts and humanities” (as opposed to mathematics, science, or business for example, fields about which I know very little). I think both perspectives are correct. My daughter is right because the arts and humanities are separated only artificially. Art, history and literature have so much to do with one another and are actually very close. Yet it’s also true that the domains became very specialized during the 20^th century, so my interests are diverse, from this perspective. Personally, I much prefer the Enlightenment model, of the philosophes and the salonnieres, where the various branches of arts and letters are seen as inseparable. Because in my eyes, they still are.

V.C.: What is postromanticism about and why did you initiate it?

C.M.: Postromanticism is, as we call it, “the art of passion.” It’s the aesthetic movement that values sensuality, beauty and passion in contemporary art, which I started in 2002 with the Mexican sculptor Leonardo Pereznieto. Since then, dozens of very well-regarded international artists have joined this art movement. We hope to bring it to my native Romania, when my book about it, Romanticism and Postromanticism, which has been translated by the writer and critic D. R. Popa, will be launched by Editura Curtea Veche. My main motivation for launching this art movement was a positive one. I wanted to highlight what I saw as very positive aesthetic values in contemporary art. However, I was also motivated by a critical spirit. I thought that art today that is inspired by the Romantic and Realist movements was systematically excluded from museums of contemporary art and insufficiently reviewed by reputable art critics. I wanted to put my training in philosophy (aesthetics) and art to use in correcting, as much as I could, this glaring omission.

V.C.: Which internal resorts determined you to choose literature and writing?

C.M.: My main motivation in becoming a writer was the fact that I adored reading literature. My favorites were the great nineteenth century French writers, such as Tolstoy and Flaubert. I also admired the marvels an immigrant writer—Nabokov—could do with the English language. I think their tradition of writing, more or less realist in style and with incredibly rich characterizations, continues today in writers of mainstream “literary fiction” such as Jeffrey Eugenides, Wally Lamb and Jonathan Franzen. I couldn’t resist the internal drive to turn my love of reading into a love of writing, particularly about the historical and psychological themes that obsess me most.

V.C.: Why did you write Velvet Totalitarianism?

C.M.: Jeffrey Eugenides wrote a comic epic about Greek immigrants in Middlesex. I wanted to write such an epic about Romania and Romanian immigrants in Velvet Totalitarianism/Intre Doua Lumi. Communism was, of course, a very dark period in Romanian history. Yet even during this very difficult period people loved, laughed and smiled. I wanted to capture both the darkness and oppression and the lighter aspects of the communist era. Velvet Totalitarianism/Intre Doua Lumi shows several facets of the totalitarian experience: the love of family and romantic entanglements; the secret police (Securitate), spying and political oppression, as well as the sometimes comical challenges of being an immigrant. Besides, comedy is not always lighter than tragedy. It can be, as it is for Caragiale or Shalom Aleichem, “laughter through tears.”

V.C.: How did you choose the characters in Velvet Totalitarianism?

C.M.: In a sense they chose me by being on my mind for a long time. Leaving my country and family was something we needed to do for political reasons. But it was very difficult emotionally. I loved my country and my family and was well-integrated with my friends and teachers at school. Fundamentally, I felt Romanian in upbringing and culture, which I still consider myself today despite the fact I have some difficulty speaking and writing the language.  When I left Romania at the age of 11, I told myself that even if I couldn’t see most of my family and my country—for who knows how many years–I would one day write about them. Velvet Totalitarianism/Intre Doua Lumi represents my effort to preserve the past and keep it alive, through fiction, for both myself and others.

V.C.: Irina, the girl that leaves Romania for United States seems an alter ego of the author in Velvet Totalitarianism. Is it right?

C.M.: Yes, many aspects of Irina are autobiographical. However, many are not. To write about some of the historical and political aspects of Romanian communism, as well as the spy plot, I had to read a lot of books on the subject, and create fictional characters that brought those aspects to life. So a lot of Velvet Totalitarianism/Intre Doua Lumi is based on real life, yet at the same time everything is altered and fictionalized, to fit harmoniously into the novel (as fiction).

V.C.: How was your meeting with a totally different society, customs, social rules, life style?

C.M.: It was a culture shock. Because I’m an emotional person and a nostalgic by nature, immigrating to the United States and leaving most of my family and all of my friends in Romania was very difficult. I also didn’t speak English, so I had to learn it very quickly if my goal was to get good grades and go to a good university (which I definitely wanted to). But ultimately my adaptation was a survival mode, and in a way, superficial. I still feel mostly Romanian culturally. If you look at my Facebook friends, about 90 percent or so are of Romanian origin. And even though I hadn’t seen my native country for 30 years, when I came for the launch of Intre Doua Lumi in the fall of 2011, I felt completely at home (only Bucharest was so much more modernized and beautiful, of course, than it was when I left the country). I think that human beings adapt to new cultures to survive and accomplish their goals in life. But it doesn’t change much who we really are, on the inside. Inside, I’m Romanian more so than American.

V.C.: Velvet Totalitarianism seems a very difficult book to write, I guess. You have alternate temporal planes, many characters (some of them very complex and profound), love stories, traitors, a dictatorship and a very vivid description of the communist Romania.

C.M.: Yes, you’re right, Velvet Totalitarianism/Intre Doua Lumi was difficult to write for several reasons. First of all, I didn’t have enough time. It took me ten years to finally finish this novel because I was a full-time academic and a mom, which left me very little free time for writing fiction. Second, I had to integrate a lot of historical and political information about the Ceausescu era, the Securitate, the CIA, the Romanian orphanages and the revolution of 1989, but in a way that reads like fiction rather than like a political science or history textbook. The fictional characters couldn’t be illustrations or mouth-pieces of history, they had to come to life in their own right. The biggest challenge was tying the two parts of the plot—the spy thriller/love story between Radu and Ioana and the Irina and Paul love story—together. The novel includes two separate plot-lines in it. In  a movie, the director would probably need to choose one or the other. But in the novel they were tied together.

V.C.: The characters in the book have any correspondent in reality? Did you use real life stories to describe the so-called procedure of leaving the country, a dissident’s life or Romanian Security Service?

C.M. Almost every aspect of the novel is inspired either by my family’s experiences in communist Romania or by historical research. However, I fictionalized all of it. Velvet Totalitarianism/Intre Doua Lumi  is not really historical fiction. It’s more a family epic, a love story, a thriller, all rolled into one novel.

V. C.: How did you see the last two decades of Romania? Before 1989, there was a cultural résistance, how does it look now?

C. M.: Some cultural resistance existed in Romania before 1989, but it was little compared to countries like Poland. I think the internal dissidents gained a lot of momentum from the other anti-communist revolutions which preceded the one in Romania. This doesn’t take anything away from their courage. The time was ripe, politically, for the revolution.

V.C.: You also have a prolific online activity. Please give us some details about all your blogs – Literaturesalon, Postromanticism, and Psychopathyawareness.

C.M.: Blogs offer one of the best and most immediate ways for an author to communicate with readers. If you want the communication to be both ways, you have a comments section. If that turns out to be too time-consuming, you just post articles. There’s so much flexibility in blogs. It’s also a system of writing which is very democratic, in that it isn’t based on what professional connections you have. Anyone can write and can build a readership based on the relevance and effectiveness of his or her writing. I love this democratic nature of blogging and the freedom it gives writers.

V. C.: How do you see the Romanian national book market?

C. M.: Although I’m Romanian culturally, I’m also Americanized. So I see the Romanian book market through American eyes. I love the fact that there are so many thriving book review blogs, such as BookMag. To me, that’s the direction of books, internationally. I love the fact the major Romanian publishers are also publishing ebooks, which is going to happen more and more, also internationally. I was very impressed by the fact that the publisher of Intre Doua Lumi, Editura Curtea Veche, was extremely progressive in terms of a multimedia campaign, with a book trailer by Claudiu Ciprian Popa and a music video trailer by Andy Platon. For the next book launch, of postromanticism, I’d love to integrate dance. Book launches, to my mind, should be celebrations: a form of artistic entertainment that doesn’t take away from intellectual content, but enhances it. On the negative side, I was disappointed to find out that The New York Review of Books left Romania after only a few years. Culture is international, no matter how much you respect the individuality and traditions of your own country. Reputable international collaborations, such as with Hachette Publishing Group, Conde Nast (and others) are very valuable in Romania. They’re a big asset to the country. Once lost, it’s more difficult to bring them back. I’d love to see more, rather than less, of such cultural collaborations: something like The Huffington Post Romania (as there already is Le Huffington Post in France) and Oprah’s Book Club in Romania. If there’s any way I can help make such cultural collaborations possible, you can count me in.

V.C.: Please tell us about The Seducer, your latest literary work and when it will be translated in Romania.

C.M.: The Seducer takes the structure and plot line of one of my favorite classic novels, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and makes it contemporary by changing Vronsky’s psychological profile to that of a psychopathic seducer: a social and sexual predator, in other words. I think in reality very often serial seducers are extremely dangerous men (usually men, but they can be female, as in the case of “black widows”). For such individuals seduction isn’t about love, or even about sex in itself. It’s a hunt; a game. The women they seduce, trap and hurt are their prey. Such dangerous seducers initially disguise themselves as madly in love; as caring, wonderful people. They wear “a mask of sanity,” as it’s called in psychology. Psychopaths are not insane, just calculated, cold and evil. They lack empathy and a conscience.  Research shows that this deficiency is mostly neurological, not based on their upbringing. What they want from their prey differs, but the common denominator is power. Psychopaths are driven by a desire to possess and control others: be it an entire nation as for Stalin, or a few women, as in my new novel, The Seducer. I just gave a copy of The Seducer to Editura Curtea Veche this week. I don’t know when or if it will be translated into Romanian, but hope that it will be, since I believe this theme will resonate a lot with Romanian readers. I don’t think there are many women who haven’t been burned by psychopaths at some point in their lives. Usually they don’t know what burned them, however. This novel will reveal aspects of their own lives in a classic literary structure, inspired by Tolstoy. This theme and novel are all the more relevant now that Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is being made into a movie, starring Keira Knightley.

V.C.: We have a national reading campaign, and we would like to have your message for Romanian students about reading, literature and their contribution to one’s success in life.

C.M.: I’d like to say to Romanian students that reading—literature and the arts in general—stimulates their imagination in a way that few other activities ever will. All of the media that entertains them–youtube, TV, movies, videogames—will never rival books in engaging their imagination. The more realist the media—such as movies—the less work our own minds do to process the information; to interpret it. In reading books we not only learn about the subjects they depict, we help create them. We imagine them with our mind’s eyes. In being readers, we are therefore also co-writers in some way. And that experience is unique, valuable and timeless, no matter how much the future of publishing will change.

Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: A Portrait of the Communist Era

a)    Thank God for Cannes!

In an interview with Domenico La Porta given on May 19, 2012, Cristian Mungiu, winner of the Palme D’Or for feature film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 for his movie 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, explains the reason why his movies are more popular abroad than in his native country, Romania: “Our industry’s problem is not funding, it’s cultural. Films that are not entertainment are not popular in Romania. This is why we receive less money from the state for arthouse films, and why I had to look for international funding. My film will be seen much more abroad than it will be at home. That’s just how it is. We have to hold on and continue to produce good quality films also aimed at the Romanian people.”

This problem, unfortunately, is global.  In popular culture, it’s easy to make fun of Cannes and the movies it features, awards and promotes. Often described as political, boring and pretentious in its consecration of avant-garde cinema, the Cannes Film Festival is very prestigious (with movie critics and directors) yet… oddly unpopular with the general public. There’s even a (pretty good) joke about it in Romania that one of the movies that received an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 was shot by accident on surveillance cameras. And yet… let’s turn it around. Take a moment to imagine how much easier it would be to make fun of today’s popular Hollywood movies! Formulaic plots, broomstick, one-dimensional characterizations, weak acting, lots of special effects as a distraction for lack of substance: for the most part, these are the movies that draw the public make hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, internationally.

Frankly, I can’t understand how viewers manage to stay awake, much less laugh, during yet another formulaic romantic comedy about one-night stands becoming love of one’s life; another Las Vegas vacation gone wrong; or another “friends with benefits” scenario that ends up, predictably, becoming a hot and heavy, meaningful romance. In its prejudicial preference for hyper-promoted, over-funded and, frankly, silly films as “real entertainment,” the general public risks missing out on well-acted, beautifully shot, and incredibly moving and entertaining movies, made both by independent and by some Hollywood filmmakers.

b)  4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: A Portait of the Communist Era

In the same interview I cited above, with Domenico La Porta, Cristian Mungiu discusses his recent movie, Beyond the Hills (which won an award for “best screenplay” at the Cannes Film Festival 2012, and for which the leading actresses, Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, shared the “best actress” award). Mungiu states that his movies are not intended to be portraits of an era. He states that Beyond the Hills in particular doesn’t make any general comments against religion: “There is no generalization, and I’m not describing Romanian society through this little community. A film is not able to be all-encompassing.” I would beg to differ with the last statement. I find  that the movie 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days–which, along with The Lives of Others (2006) is one of my favorite movies–is an accurate and sweeping portrait of the drab and repressive communist era. In fact, I remember thinking of Mungiu’s movie and of The Lives of Others as I was writing my novel about the communist epoch under Ceausescu, Velvet Totalitarianism (translated into Romanian as Intre Doua Lumi, Editura Curtea Veche 2011). These two  movies showed me that you don’t have to try to describe all aspects of a society or of a historical period to offer a sweeping portrayal of that epoch.

In fact, it can be much more effective to show compellingly and in-depth a slice of life, as Mungiu does in  4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, that offers viewers (or readers) a glimpse upon the vaster forces—of repression and corruption—that governed society and culture in Ceausescu’s Romania. A. O. Scott from The New York Times declared this movie the “number one film of the year”. The high praise is well-deserved. The movie describes how two close friends—Otilia, played by Anamaria Marinca, and Gabita Dragut, played by Laura Vasiliu, cope with the practical and moral difficulties of one of them getting an abortion during the 1980’s. This is not an easy decision, morally or practically, given the fact that birth control and abortion are outlawed at this time in Romania and those who violate the law risk facing severe penalties. I’d like to offer a little background into the period, which the movie captures so well.

c) “Pronatalist” Policies in Communist Romania

From the beginning, Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania’s tyrannical communist dictaor, made rapid industrialization a cornerstone of his domestic policy. During the 1960’s, however, the country approximated zero population growth, which meant, in the long run, a reduced labor force. In response, Ceausescu abolished abortion in 1966, except for cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother or if the mother was over 45 years old and had given birth to at least four children. Later, he introduced more punitive pronatalist measures to offer Romanian citizens further incentives to have more children. The government increased taxes for men and women who remained childless after the age of 25. In 1967 Ceausescu practically abolished divorce. A miniscule quota of maximum 28 divorces was allowed in the whole country that year. The government also offered some positive incentives. Mothers received a monetary reward upon the birth of their third child and the income taxes of couples with three or more children were lowered by 30 percent.

The policy that proved to have disastrous consequences for the country was the abolition of birth control. Contraceptives, which were not manufactured in Romania, were banned, making effective birth control extremely difficult. Initially, the birth rate rose dramatically, but then quickly declined again as women began resorting to dangerous, illegal abortions, which could sometimes be obtained in exchange for a carton of Kent cigarettes. By the early 1980’s, the government took more intrusive measures to regulate women’s reproductive cycles. As Mungiu’s movie illustrates as well, doctors performed mandatory monthly gynecological exams on all women of reproductive age to detect and monitor pregnancies. The government also launched a propaganda campaign praising “patriotic” couples that had several children. These measures, however, failed to achieve the desired results. After decades of repressive policies, birthrates in Romania were only slightly higher than those of nations where abortion was legal. However, these draconian measures did manage to increase the number of unwanted children, many of whom were put up for adoption in Romania’s infamous orphanages, which began to receive international media attention during the 1980’s.

d) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Compelling characterizations and stunning cinematography

So what did women do when they got pregnant and did not want to raise children in such dire conditions? They often made the difficult choice that Gabriela Dragut was forced to make in the movie 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days: getting an illegal abortion. This choice carried with it two inherent risks. First, there was the obvious one of violating the law and getting caught, which could result in loss of job and status and even long jail sentences.  But as the movie illustrates, there was an even greater danger of falling into the hands of those who habitually violate laws: unscrupulous sociopathic predators. This is precisely what Gabriela and Otilia encounter in the man they desperately appeal to for help: the illegal abortionist that goes by the name of “Mr. Bebe”. From the beginning, we get the sense that there’s something not quite right, psychologically, with Mr. Bebe. He takes charge of every situation and appears as a bully even when he doesn’t raise his voice. He’s also exceedingly controlling. For instance, he forbids his own mother from exiting the apartment to buy sugar. We know that’s a red flag, since sociopaths foster isolation and minutely control their victims.

Taking charge of the two young women as soon as he finds himself alone in the hotel room with them, he bullies them into accepting to sleep with him. Typical of a sociopath, he presents this act of rape as a moral highground. Turning the tables on them, Mr. Bebe makes them feel immoral and cheap. He screams at them that that he’s not a beggar and that he’s not going to perform an illegal action which may result in the loss of his freedom for a mere 3000 lei, the amount of money the girls were able to scrounge up to pay for the illegal abortion.  Not seeing any way out, the young women agree to his price, which emotionally is far heavier than they had anticipated. While they are very traumatized by this experience of prostituting themselves for an abortion, Mr. Bebe takes it all in stride. After he sleeps with them, he even begins to address them in a familiar and friendly fashion, as if nothing happened. The sociopath’s shallow emotions contrasts sharply with the emotionally charged, devastated response of the two young women.

The movie captures the darkness of the communist era not just in its compelling characterizations and realistic plot, but also in its spectacular cinematography. Almost every shot is gray or dark, with the exception of the clinical, white images of the medical scenes. Otilia is usually shot from the back, to suggest that she lacks agency when the choices she is forced to make are so limited and abject. After Mr. Bebe leaves their hotel room, the two young women ruminate about the situation, going over their mistakes and what they could have done differently to avoid the deep humiliation they just endured. Otilia blames her friend for getting her into such a difficult and dreadful situation, almost shifting the blame from the sociopathic predator beyond her control to her sweet, helpless and passive friend Gabita, who is a fellow victim. Yet their situation is symptomatic of what practically every Romanian citizen endured at the time in many life decisions: a severe limitation of one’s freedom, of one’s choices and the repeated violation of one’s moral and emotional boundaries. When most normal aspects of human life are forbidden, as they were during Ceausescu’s repressive regime, one is forced to take drastic—and often illegal—measures, which are often the domain of the most unscrupulous and usurious people on earth: of sociopaths like Domnu Bebe.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days has skilled and stunning cinematography appropriate to the subject and period it depicts; historical accuracy; realistic and moving characterizations; wonderful acting and above all great directing. If this is not  real entertainment—from which viewers will also learn something about history and about human nature—then I don’t know what is! Before Hollywood embarks on yet another predictable romantic comedy or cartoonish action movie, I think it should take a few notes from Cannes.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

Why Writers Write: Common Myths about being a Writer

The Seducer by Claudia Moscovici

In my career as a writer–of both fiction and literary/art criticism–I have encountered many myths about why writers write. Some of them I even believed myself when I was younger. It is tempting and glamorous to believe that writing is a profession that brings with it fame and fortune. In fact, the Romantic movement disseminated such a myth, presenting the writer as a free spirit that achieves greatness and immortality via his art or fiction. The reality of being a writer is, in most cases, very different and therefore so are the main motivations of contemporary authors. I’d like to describe some of those motivations by going over a few common misconceptions about writing.

Myth 1. Writing is a profession.  It’s true that full-time writing takes as much time as any profession does. Moreover, writers seldom take breaks or vacations from writing. It is often an all-consuming enterprise. Ideas and inspiration don’t have a set schedule, even if the writer is very disciplined and writes regularly. Furthermore, a profession implies a more or less steady salary. However, few writers receive a steady income–enough to support themselves and their families–by writing. So, in that sense, writing is not a profession, at least not in the conventional sense of the term. It’s more of an all-consuming passion and a way of life in which the monetary rewards are uneven and uncertain. In the United States, where I live and publish, writers receive about 5 to 10 percent royalties from the profits made by their books. The percentage depends upon how many copies of their books are sold, how much they cost, and what kind of contract their literary agent (or they, themselves) have negotiated with the publisher. Generally speaking, the more books they sell the larger the author’s royalties, but it seldom exceeds 10 percent.  Needless to say, unless your books sell as well as the Harry Potter or Twilight series—and sell movie rights on top of book sales—it’s difficult to imagine making a steady income for an entire family just by writing and publishing books.

Myth 2. Writers want to be famous. As they say here, good luck with that! As far as popular culture is concerned, you have much better chances of becoming famous if you’re an actor or pop star. We can take the Harry Potter series as an example, since it’s so well known internationally. The principal actors of the films—Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson—are far better known than the author of the series, J. K. Rowling, who is nonetheless one of the best known contemporary authors. Generally speaking, far more people would recognize in the street the actors as opposed to the authors of very successful books that have been made into movies. So if you want fame or external recognition, it’s best that you select a profession that is more visible in mainstream culture, such as singing or acting. 

Myth 3. Writers want immortality. This is a very tempting Romantic thought for anyone who aspires to achieve greatness. But most professional writers are quickly disabused of this notion. “Immortality” is not a pure Romantic ideal; it’s more of a political and pragmatic reality. It depends upon the processes of cultural consecration. One of the best authors I have read on this subject is Pierre Bourdieu. His books, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature and Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, explain all the politics and social hierarchies involved in making it into the canon, be it in art, music or literature. Attaining this kind of artistic “immortality”—which is so human and ephemeral after all—depends upon a very complex and heavily politicized process that does not favor most authors or lie within their (or their publisher’s) control.

Myth 4. It’s easy to publish. That depends on the avenue of publishing you try. Self-publishing is easy, since now anyone can print their e-books on Amazon Kindle. But the problem with that is that there are so many books out there that it’s tough to reach an audience. If you select this path, you won’t have the promotion or distribution budget that the major publishing houses have at their disposal.  And if you want to publish with a large publishing house, at least in the U.S., then you have to go through the usually challenging process of finding a reputable literary agent who is able to place your book.  A few years ago, I had the opportunity to have an inside peek at this process. When I was teaching at the University of Michigan, I organized a few panel discussions at the Ann Arbor Book Festival (in 2005, 2006 and 2007). In 2007, Amy Williams, who is Elizabeth Kostova’s literary agent, and Susan Golomb, Jonathan Franzen’s agent were two of the guest speakers in these panels. They discussed, among other things, the publishing process, explaining that they receive as many as 100 to 200 submissions a day from authors seeking representation. This deluge of queries is colloquially called “the slush pile”. Like most very successful agents, they usually sift through the queries and focus mostly on submissions by successful authors they know of or authors recommended by successful authors they know. Only rarely do they find in the slush pile unknown and unrecommended authors they wish to represent, and even in those cases, they are usually students at very reputable M.F.A. programs or have published with important magazines or literary reviews.

So if writing is not a great way to become famous, immortal or even earn a steady income, then why do so many of us want to become writers? I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but I can say that my main motivation for writing has been intellectual and artistic freedom. It’s something that many artists and writers prize dearly. There are few human endeavors as closely tied to freedom as writing. Here’s why.

a)   First of all, a writer can’t really thrive without living in a country that respects and protects the freedom of speech. Granted, great writers emerged even during the worst totalitarian regimes. Maxim Gorky, the most prominent writer during the Stalinist era, is a prime example. But even he had to compromise his creativity and abide by the motto coined by Yury Olesha and paraphrased by Stalin himself: “The Production of souls is more important than the production of tanks. And therefore I raise my glass to you, writers, the engineers of the human soul” (Joseph Stalin, “Speech at home of Maxim Gorky,” 26 October 1932). This subordination of art and literature to ideology is one of the saddest thing a culture can do human creativity. It is an engineering of a state of soullessness rather than of the human soul. Writing and the freedom of expression are closely intertwined.

b)    It is difficult to write as told. The creative process—particularly for writing fiction–is delicate, quirky and individual. Writers write not only in different genres, but also at different speeds; at their own pace. Some take a lifetime to write their masterpiece; others, like Balzac, write a novel a year. Some require daily discipline; others write in periodic spurts of inspiration.  Nothing and nobody can dictate, from the outside, how writers should write. I know this is part of why I preferred being a writer to being an academic. Academic writing is constrained by area of specialization and technical jargon. Fiction is constrained by nothing. Only your capacities and imagination are the limit. “Everything you can imagine is real,” said Picasso. How true!

c)  Your creativity is your only real guide. As a writer, you generally have to have in mind a target audience as well as what publishers can sell, to market your book. However, these are very abstract parameters. Nobody can really predict the public taste: not writers, not literary agents, not publishers. For publishers and literary agents, publishing success is like a very well informed gamble. Well informed because they study the market closely and have an intuitive understanding of what sells well. But nobody can predict the next best seller with a high degree of accuracy. That’s why literary agents represent between 100 and 200 authors and why the big, mainstream publishers in the U.S. publish about 200 to 300 books a year. Some of them are with established, brand name authors that are sure to sell well, but many of the new authors have only moderate success. Nobody could have predicted in advance, for instance, that a book of erotic fiction like Fifty Shades of Grey—a genre usually relegated to small, specialized erotica presses and that hasn’t been so wildly popular since Marquis de Sade made a splash in the eighteenth-century—would be this year’s best-seller. Go figure! For writers, agents and publishers alike, public taste is a wild card. You can aim to please a large mainstream audience, but your aim may or may not hit the target.

d)   Writing is a celebration of freedom. This is a personal reason. It may not be applicable to all authors, but it was my main motivation for writing fiction. I left Romania as a child, while the country was still in the throes of the worst phase of Ceausescu’s repression. The communist regime had clamped down on the Iron Curtain, instituting increasingly stifling and repressive measures. I wrote my first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism, translated by Mihnea Gafita into Romanian as Intre Doua Lumi (Curtea Veche Publishing, 2011), in order to record palpably, through fiction, a very challenging historical period in Romanian history. I hoped that those of us who lived through it would remember it and that the new generations would learn about it. It’s important to keep in mind the communist past because it’s so easy to repeat it. Not necessarily in the same way, but through supporting similar forms of political repression or corruption that risk depriving us of the basic human rights and freedoms that make not only writing, but also living possible.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

(Note: This essay was originally published in Romanian translation, in Orizonturi Cultuale, on the following link: http://www.orizonturiculturale.ro/ro_proza_Claudia-Moscovici.html)

Why We Love Books

 

 

How books are made, the process of publishing, who writes them and for what purpose has changed tremendously over time. But one thing remains the same: we still love to read books. Under whatever form–paperback, hardcover, ebooks or audio–books are here to stay. Here are some of the reasons why: 

1. Entertainment. Books are still one of the best and most accessible forms of entertainment. We can learn about any subject and travel, in our imagination, to any place and time by reading books. We can even imagine alternative universes. Even better, reading is a very flexible endeavor. We  can do it in the privacy of our homes, online through joining reading clubs, or with our neighbors and friends in local book clubs.

2. Socializing. Even solitary reading is an inherently social activity. In reading, we connect with the literary canon or simply with what’s popular at the moment. Chances are that if we’ve heard of a book, it’s already been marketed and promoted widely. Many of us join local book clubs, which become a welcome opportunity of catching up on our friends’ and acquaintances’ lives, enjoying time together, and discussing life in general, not just books. Moreover, via reading and review websites such as Librarything.com, Shelfari.com, and Goodreads.com we can make new acquaintances based on lively discussions and common interests.

3. Acquiring information or knowledge. We often read to learn about how to diet, how to dress, how to parent kids correctly: anything and everything about psychology, art, science, literature, dance or any  other subject that interests us. Although nowadays there are many convenient online sources of information, often books provide a level of depth and detail that cannot be replaced by such brief descriptions.

4. Exploring our imagination and leading parallel lives. Most of us assume that we only have one life on Earth. As we grow older, our lives narrow as a result of the choices–of lifestyle, partners, careers, family–we make. Each choice, be it good or bad, determines our direction and eliminates other potential paths in life. Reading is the easiest way to explore other modes of existence, practically risk free. Books carry us to places we’ve not even dreamt of before, to different epochs or styles of life. It is in some ways even more liberating than film because readers fill in the blanks more so than viewers, in imagining characters and situations described only through words. Reading fiction, for instance, places us in the shoes of characters radically different from us and helps us envision what it’s like to live that kind of life. This is why reading is not just a light or passive exercise. It’s also an inherently philosophical and very liberating exercise of our imagination. Through imagining compelling thought experiments–characters, places and situations–reading represents one of the easiest and most creative ways of escaping the limitations of our lives. It gives us the kind of ontological freedom that few other activities can afford. This is why I believe that no matter what transformations the publishing world will go through–and many predict that there will be some major ones in the near future–we will continue to love books.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon