Ana-Maria Avram

Ana-Maria Avram (b. September 12, 1961, Bucharest - d. August 1st, 2017) was a Romanian composer, pianist and conductor. She was married to Iancu Dumitrescu.

Biography

She graduated from the Music University of Bucharest, composition department, in 1985, before studying Musical Aesthetics at Sorbonne (Paris, 1992) and getting her PhD in 1996.

She made her performing debut in 1975 as a pianist, as a soloist of the Romanian Radio Television Studio Orchestra. In 1986 she made her debut as a composer with "Threnia I" for violin and orchestra, interpreted by the National Radio Orchestra.

Her oeuvre comprises over 160 symphonic, chamber and computer-assisted music pieces. Ana-Maria Avram represents, along with Iancu Dumitrescu, the hyperspectral current in modern Romanian music. The Romanian school of spectral music has been recognized as an original and distinct voice since the 1970s, preceding the emergence of the French spectralist school. Her works have been presented in Bucharest, New York, Boston, Sandford, Vienna (Wien Modern 1992 - 1994, 2002), Paris (Radio France, Theater de la Ville), London (Royal Festival Hall in Conway Hall), Nancy, Alicante, Baden-Baden, Darmstadt, Basel, Moscow, Belgrade, Geneva, Brussels, Minneapolis, etc, and performed bywell known ensembles such as the Soloists of the National Orchestra of France (Paris), Kronos Quartet (San Francisco), 20 Jahrhundert Enesmble (Vienna), George Enescu Philharmonic, National Radio Chamber Orchestra, Ars Nova (Cluj) Musiques Nouvelles (Brussels), Hyperion (Bucharest), and iO Quartet (New York).

Ana-Maria Avram is the initiator and producer, along with Iancu Dumitrescu, of important international festivals dedicated to electronic music and spectral music, in Romania and Europe: Acousmania - Bucharest, Musica Nova in Ploiești and Spectrum XXI in Paris, Geneva, London, Brussels, Berlin, Harvard-Boston, Farmington.

In 1994 she obtained the Grand Prize of the Romanian Academy.

Important works

• “Threnia I-II” for orchestra and soloists
• "Ekagrata" for orchestra,
• "Swarms I-IX", for various strings
• "Nouvelle Axes" I-XI for various string formations
• "An Raggio ardente" for string orchestra
• "Ec-Static Crickets" for strings
• "De sacrae Lamentationem" for the orchestra
• "Chaosmos" for two orchestras
• "Zodiac I-IV", music for various instruments and electronic band
• "Notturno" for oboe and electronic tape
• "Signum Gemini", for clarinet, percussion, prepared piano and tape
• "Ikarus II", for bass and band vioda
• "Archae", for solo voice
• "Metaboles" for flute / clarinet / bass clarinet
• "Quatre études d'ombre" for bass flute
• "Ikarus-Kronos Quartet", for string quartet and band
• "Asonant I-III" for various chamber ensembles
• "New Arcana", for the whole
• "Traces, Sillons, Sillages", for ensemble and computer-assisted sounds
• "Doryphories", for the whole
• "Axes" (I-IX) for various stringed instruments
• "New Archae" for computer-assisted voices
• "Horridas Nostrae Mentis Purga Tenebras", computer-assisted music
• "Labyrinthe" for the whole
• “Voices of the Desert” for ensemble and computer
• "Lux Animae" for the whole computer
• His music is edited by "ARTGallery" (Paris), Radio France (Paris), ReR Megacorp (London), MusicWorks (Toronto), Bananafish (Los Angeles), Electrecord (Bucharest), Edition Modern (London - Paris).

Bibliography

• 1992 "Romania, terre du neuvieme ciel" an extensive interview with musicologist Harry Halbreich.
• 2006 - Second edition, revised and completed
• 2007 “Spectral Music at the Beginning of the 21st Century (CREMAC)
• 2007 “12 Romanian Composers in SPECTRUM XXI Festival”
• 2007 "Structure, Phenomenology and Ethnomusicology in Spectral Music" - Panel discussion with Tristan Murail, Iancu Dumitrescu, Joshua Finneberg, Istanbul ITU.

Musicological contributions

• "Ana Maria Avram and Iancu Dumitrescu" - Musicworks Nr 71, "Being composer" - MusicWorks no.76 (2000); "Ana-Maria Avram: an adventure in experimental music" interview with Costin Cazaban, Bananafish, Los Angeles no. 15 (2001), Jean-Noël Von Der Weid: "The Music of the Twentieth Century" - Paris, Hachette, 2004, Guillaume Ollendorf "Que la Lumière sonne: Chronicle of the Lux Aeterna Berlin festival" (Movement, 2011), Guillaume Ollendorff: "Ana-Maria Avram and Iancu Dumitrescu at the Choir of Chaos" (Movement, December 2012)

Text partially adapted from the Romanian Wikipedia.