Hyperion Ensemble
From Unearthing The Music
Hyperion Ensemble is a chamber music ensemble from Romania, based in Bucharest. It was founded in 1976 by composer Iancu Dumitrescu and specializes in the performance of contemporary classical music. Specifically, it is the main Romanian promoter of the spectral music school. The Hyperion Ensemble performed all over the world, and premiered major works by Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram. Hyperion Ensemble's performances are hyper-spectralist, transformational and acousmatic.
Mode Records in New York describes their work as such: “As a starting point, Hyperion explored possible connections between the most archaic Romanian music - Byzantine music, folk music collected by Bartok, etc. - and today’s avant-garde music. It is a tradition of performance, of interpreting each new score as a provocation of the spirit, and a quest for new domains of sound. Aesthetically, at the heart of this work is the notion of spectrality as it developed in the work of Dumitrescu, Avram and other Romanian composers, that is: a specifically transformational spectrality, as opposed to the structural spectrality of the French Itinéraire group. Hyperion has performed all over Europe, and recently in United States, and recorded numerous LPs and 24 compact discs.”
The Hyperion Ensemble participated in many radio broadcasts and edited several LPs, particularly the 24 CD series with Dumitrescu and Avram's music.
Selected discography
- "Ansamblul Hyperion Conducerea Muzicală: Iancu Dumitrescu - Ansamblul Hyperion (LP)" - Electrecord - 1981
- "Dumitrescu, Avram, Cutler, Hodgkinson with The Hyperion Ensemble - Musique Action '98 (CD, Album)" - ReR Megacorp, Edition Modern - 1999
- "GOL, Ana-Maria Avram, Iancu Dumitrescu And Members Of Ansamblul Hyperion* - Musique Directe (LP, Ltd)" - Planam - 2008
- "Dumitrescu / Avram / Volkov / Hyperion - Ilan Volkov Conducts Ana-Maria Avram · Iancu Dumitrescu (CD)" - Edition Modern - 2014