American Romanian Festival 2023/24 • February 24, 2024 Program Book

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Please check americanromanianfestival.org for future events as they get posted.

FUTURE CONCERTS:

The Amazing Cimbalom with Virtuoso Alexandru Șura / Friday, March 22, 2024 / 11:30 a.m.

Wayne State University, Schaver Recital Hall, 480 W Hancock St, Detroit, MI 48201

The Music of the Cimbalom: An Afternoon with Cimbalom (Ţambal) Virtuoso Alexandru Șura / Saturday, March 23, 2024 / 2 p.m.

Steinway Piano Gallery Detroit, 2700 E West Maple Rd, Commerce Charter Twp, MI 48390

Mozart, Schumann, Enescu, & Tăutu Chamber Music / Saturday, April 13, 2024 / 2 p.m.

Steinway Piano Gallery Detroit, 2700 E West Maple Rd, Commerce Charter Twp, MI 48390

STAFF

Marian Tănău, President & Artistic Director

Joan Olkowski, Website & Design

Lori Newman, Operations

SPONSORS.

SPONSORS

The American Romanian Festival programs are supported by our generous sponsors.

GOLD LEVEL

$3000–$4999

Elizabeth Greve & Franz Herbert

Marian & Jennifer Tănău

SILVER LEVEL

$1000–$2999

Ann & James Nicholson

John Jr. & Judy Santeiu

BRONZE LEVEL

$400–$999

Dragos & Roxana Galusca

Iuliana & Ovidiu Niculescu

FRIENDS LEVEL

$50–$399

Ioan & Georgeta Atanasiu

Paul & Barbara Burakoff

Marcy Chanteaux

Doug & Minka Cornelson

Mircea & Daniela Cure

Maureen D'Avanzo

Doina David

Ileana Dragnea

Viorica Fuchs

Adrian & Ella Gheorghiu

Razvan Pala

Silviu & Gela Pala

Wiley Pickett Jr.

Lori Runco

Elena Vasiliu

THANK YOU

Leah Celebi—Vice President of Community Engagement & Programming, The War Memorial

Joan Olkowski—Website & Design

Lori Newman—Editing

Matthew Pons—Stage Department Head, Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Russell Miller—Interim Chair, Department of Music, Wayne State University

The Santeiu Family

CONCERT

In Memoriam:

Cornel Țăranu

CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT

Saturday, February 24, 2024 / 3 p.m.

Steinway Piano Gallery Detroit

2700 E West Maple Rd

Commerce Charter Twp, MI 48390

ADMISSION ⁄ $10–$20

Student: $10 (ID Required) / Regular: $20

Payments Accepted: Cash, Credit Card, Check

ARTISTS

Hai-Xin Wu, violin

Marian Tănău, violin

Mike Chen, viola

Jeremy Crosmer, cello

Sarah Lewis, oboe

Zhihua Tang, piano

Sara Aldana, conductor

György Ligeti (1923–2006)

Ballad and Dance (1950)

Hai-Xin Wu & Marian Tănău, violins

Cornel Ţăranu (1934–2023)

String Trio (1952)

Hai-Xin Wu, violin; Mike Chen, viola; Jeremy Crosmer, cello

Cornel Ţăranu

Remembering Bartók (1995)

Marian Tănău & Hai-Xin Wu, violins; Mike Chen, viola; Jeremy Crosmer, cello; Sarah Lewis, oboe –

Cornel Ţăranu

Baroccoco (2004)

I. Preludio ostinato

II. Madrigal

III. Siciliana-swing

IV. Swing

Marian Tănău & Hai-Xin Wu, violins; Mike Chen, viola; Jeremy Crosmer, cello; Zhihua Tang, piano

Ionică Pop (b. 1967)

Remembering Ţăranu* (2024)

*World premiere; commissioned by the American Romanian Festival.

NICHITA STANESCU

How to invent a flower (A inventa o floare)

Passages from the poem will be read during the performance of Remembering Ţăranu.

Romanian:

Din nou mă sprijin numai de cuvinte

Nu e nici o muzică să izbucnească din osul nimănui

Și nici sufletul nu are în sine liniștea potrivită orelor fericite legănate în adaosul de alcool blând.

Și nici prietenul cel puternic și apropiat tristeților și marilor idei.

Și nici femeia credincioasă

că o bătrână vulpe gravidă și atotștiutoare

în amănunțitele treburi ale câmpiei.

Și nici îngerul tatuat cu hărți, nici unul

nu este de față.

Numai cuvintele, numai ele prea puțin doritele,

că niște mercenari nervoși îmi urmăresc gestul inimii amorțind, jetul privirii pulverizând imaginile tradiționale ale lumii mele alergând sub ramuri, înotând în mare levitând în aerul plin de simunuri ❖

English:

Again I rely only on words

There is no music erupting from anyone’s bone of the heart

And neither does the soul have within itself the tranquility suitable for hours swayed in the addition of mild alcohol. And neither is the strong and close friend of sorrows and grand ideas, And neither the faithful woman like an old fox, pregnant and all knowing in the detailed affairs of the field

And neither the angel tattooed with maps, Not one of them Is present.

Only the words, only they the ones very little desired, like angry mercenaries follow the gesture of my heart, numbing, the jet of a gaze pulverizing the traditional images of my world running under the branches, swimming in the sea levitating in the air full of simooms ❖

ARTISTS

About Cornel Țăranu COMPOSER (1934–2023)

Cornel Țăranu (1934–2023) was a distinguished Romanian composer of mostly orchestral, chamber, and vocal works that have been performed throughout Europe and North and South America.

Prof. Țăranu studied composition with Sigismund Toduță at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1951 to 1957, where he later earned a Doctorate in Musicology in 1974. He also studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire from 1966 to 1967 and with György Ligeti, Bruno Maderna, and Christoph Caskel in Darmstadt from 1968 to 1972.

Among his many honors are the Great Officer of the Order of Cultural Merit (2004, Romania), five prizes from the Romanian Composers Union (1972, 1978, 1981, 1982, 2001), the Prize of the Academy of the SR of Romania (1973), and the International Koussevitzky Award (1982, for a recording of Garlands). He has been a member of the Romanian Academy since 1993 and was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002.

Prof. Țăranu founded the chamber orchestra Ars Nova in Cluj-Napoca in 1968 and served as its Artistic Director and Conductor until his death. He also served as the VicePresident of the Romanian Composers Union from 1990 to 2023 and as director of the Cluj Modern Festival from 1995 to 2023. He published many musicological works, as well

as the book Enescu în Conștiința Prezentului (1969, Editura pentru Literatură).

He taught at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1957 to 2023, where he was Professor of Composition. Prof. Țăranu also gave lectures in Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and the USA. © 2023 by Cristina Țăranu. ❖

ARTISTS.

Hai-Xin Wu

VIOLIN

Violinist Hai-Xin Wu joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra violin section in July 1995 and was appointed Assistant Concertmaster of the DSO in June 2004. He previously performed throughout the United States, Europe, and his native China.

At the age of 12, Wu was selected as the violin soloist to tour the former Yugoslavia. In May 1995, he made his Carnegie Hall debut in New York City. Wu was also featured as soloist with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra for its 25th Anniversary Gala Concert; with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra on its recording and Midwest tour; and with the Bergen Philharmonic in New Jersey, among others.

Wu has won competitions including the Waldo Mayo Violin Competition, the Friends of Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Competition, and the Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition. He also won a special prize in the 2002 Lipizer International Competition. He earned his Bachelor of Music from the Manhattan School of Music as a scholarship student of Ariana Bronne.

In addition to performing with the DSO, Wu often plays with various chamber groups including the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings and the Cuttime Players. From 1998–2001, he was a member of the Sonnet String Quartet, the quartet-in-residence at Oakland University. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Wayne State University and a violin and chamber music coach with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Youth Ensembles program. ❖

Marian Tănău

VIOLIN

picked up the violin at age 4 and began his musical education in his hometown of Timișoara in Romania. He graduated from Liceul de Muzica “Ion Vidu,” where he studied violin with Maria Cleşiu. He then left for the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca and the Conservatorul de Muzica “G. Dima,” where he earned an Artists Diploma. Later in the USA, he earned a graduate degree from Bowling Green State University.

Tănău joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1995. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Romania and the USA and is an active chamber musician. In 2004, Tănău joined the violin faculty at Wayne State University. In 2005, he was awarded a sabbatical year and moved temporarily to Romania where he joined the music faculty at the National College of Art “Ion Vidu” and the Music Conservatory of the West University from Timișoara.

His recording of the Violin Sonata by Paul Paray, recorded for Grotto Productions, received praise from critics in the prestigious Strad, Gramophone, and Fanfare magazines.

Marian Tănău is the founder and president of the American Romanian Festival Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote American and Romanian music and culture to audiences in the USA and Europe. ❖

ARTISTS

Mike Chen

Jeremy Crosmer

CELLO

to 2017. Mike was a member of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2012, and prior to that, a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 1992 to 1995. Additionally, Mike has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony. In 2017, Mike joined the Cincinnati Symphony on its European Festivals Tour.

Mike received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Northwestern University, studying violin with Blair Milton. In 1999, he began playing the viola and studied with Li-Kuo Chang. His other teachers include Michael Strauss, Peter Slowik, Keith Conant, and Baird Dodge.

Mike received a Master’s degree in conducting at Northwestern University in 1999, studying with Victor Yampolsky and Mariusz Smolij. His other conducting teachers include Gilbert Varga, David Zinman, and Murry Sidlin. Mike was a conducting fellow at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, Colorado, in 2008. He has also served as assistant conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, guest conductor of the Webster University Community Music School’s Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, and guest conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Side-by-Side Orchestra. ❖

Jeremy Crosmer is a remarkable young artist, both as a cellist and a composer. Crosmer completed multiple graduate degrees from the University of Michigan in cello, composition, and theory pedagogy, and received his DMA in 2012 at age 24. From 2012 to 2017, he served as the assistant principal cellist in the Grand Rapids Symphony, and he joined the DSO in May 2017. He is the composer and arranger for the GRS Music for Health Initiative, which pairs symphonic musicians with music therapists to bring classical music to hospitals. In March 2017, the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital launched a music channel that runs continuously, using four hours of meditative music composed by Crosmer and performed by musicians of the GRS.

Crosmer is a founding member of the modern music ensemble Latitude 49. He is also a current member of the band ESME, a duo that aims to broaden the education of classical music by bringing crossovers and mashups of pop and classical music to schools throughout Michigan. ESME released its first CD in December 2016.

In April 2013, Crosmer toured London with the Grand Valley State University Chamber Orchestra. He performed the Vivaldi Double Concerto with Alicia Eppinga and the GRS in March 2016. While still in school, Crosmer was awarded the prestigious Theodore Presser Graduate Music Award to publish, record, and perform his Crosmer-Popper duets. He recorded the duets with Julie Albers, and both sheet music and CD are available online. ❖

VIOLA

ARTISTS.

Sarah Lewis

Prior to joining the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Sarah Lewis served as Second Oboe of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She has made guest appearances with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, and the Lansing Symphony Orchestra.

A native of Petoskey, Michigan, Lewis made weekly trips to the Interlochen Arts Academy during high school to study with Daniel Stolper. She completed her undergraduate degree at Michigan State University, studying with Jan Eberle, where she was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize for outstanding achievement in the arts.

Under the tutelage of Nathan Hughes, Lewis received her Master’s degree from The Juilliard School, with additional studies from Elaine Douvas, Pedro Diaz, and Linda Strommen. Lewis also participated in the Chautauqua Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Festival where she was a recipient of the Mickey L. Hooten Memorial Award.

Lewis now spends her summer months performing the roles of Second Oboe and English Horn in the Festival Napa Valley and the Classical Tahoe Orchestra in Nevada. A passionate music educator, Lewis enjoys teaching oboe privately and has served as guest lecturer at Michigan State University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

When she is not playing the oboe or making reeds, Lewis enjoys yoga, baking, and hiking with her adventurous husband, McLain. ❖

Zhihua Tang

Zhihua Tang is an associate professor in collaborative piano at the Michigan State University College of Music.

She has enjoyed an active performing career around the world and has been praised for her extraordinary versatility and profound artistry on the piano.

Tang was the top prize winner of the Beethoven Sonata Competition in Memphis, Tennessee, the Central Division of the MTNA Collegiate Artist Competition, and the Chopin Competition in Chicago. She has also received an honorable mention at the XII International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with many orchestras on different continents. As a recitalist, she has performed extensively across Europe, the U.S., and Asia in major music venues such as Bösendorfer Hall in Vienna, Rackham Hall in Ann Arbor, Detroit Orchestra Hall, Beijing Zhongshan Music Hall, and the Shanghai Centre Theatre.

She has held teaching positions at Alma College, Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, University of North Dakota, and Summer Music Camp at Bowling Green State University. As an avid advocate for music in the community, she has worked as a chamber music coach in the Detroit Civic Youth Ensemble, one of the premier youth music organizations in the country. She has been frequently invited to give performances and master classes throughout the United States and China. ❖

Sara Aldana

a diverse career as a conductor, violinist, and arts educator. Sara currently serves as the Assistant Conductor of the Reno Chamber Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Conductor for the Life Science Orchestra, and Cover Conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Sara is currently in her second year of her Master’s degree in orchestral conducting at the University of Michigan under the guidance of Maestro Kenneth Kiesler. Sara is passionate about bringing community together through music and has served as director of Austin Soundwaves Community Orchestra, co-director of UT Lab Orchestra, and co-director of UT String Project Chamber Orchestra. In recent summers, she has attended The Conductor’s Retreat at Medomak, The Project at Brevard Music Center, and the Kent Blossom Music Festival. ❖

Ionică Pop COMPOSER

Ioan (Ionică) Pop was born in Sîngeorz–Băi, Romania, on August 20, 1967. He studied oboe and piano at the Lyceum of Music in Cluj-Napoca from 1977 to 1985. He continued with graduate studies in composition at the Gheorghe Dima Conservatory of Music in ClujNapoca from 1986 to 1991, under Professor Cornel Ţăranu, who directed his doctoral thesis, Tendencies and Structures in Today's Music. Ionică obtained his Ph.D. in music in June 2004.

In 2006, Mr. Pop completed a diploma as Director of Musical Theatre at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca.

Currently, Mr. Pop is Associate Professor at the Department of Musicology of the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music. His works have been performed in prestigious festivals such as Cluj Musical Autumn, Cluj Modern, and George Enescu International Festival; at the George Enescu Museum in Bucharest; and in Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Israel, and the U.S. In recent years, he organized the Aurel Stroe Festival and Symposium from Buşteni, Romania.

Mr. Pop is interested in investigating the convergence between composition and direction in instrumental theatre, and also in original ways to compose for voice using his own poems as lyrics. ❖

GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923–2006)

Ballad and Dance (1950)

György Ligeti composed Baladă și joc (Ballad and Dance) in 1950. The work is a short composition for two violins based on two Romanian folk songs, the result of Ligeti’s Romanian folk music research conducted at the Folklore Institute of Bucharest in 1949. The work's two movements are Ballad, a slow, melodic, contrapuntal, and highly expressive work, followed by Dance, which is energetic, exuberant, and virtuosic. ❖

PROGRAM NOTES.

IONICĂ POP (B. 1967)

Remembering Ţăranu (2024)

Remembering Ţăranu was commissioned by the American Romanian Festival after the death of Romanian composer, musicologist, and conductor Cornel Ţăranu in 2023. The work is written for string quartet and piano and employs a twelve-tone row, which also serves as a musical cryptogram, as the unifying feature. Pop uses Ţăranu’s full name in the cryptogram as follows: C-do, O-do#, R-re, N-fa#, E-mib, L-labb; U(t)-do4b, N-to, A-fa, R-re2#, Ă-la#, T-dob, with “Ţăranu” musically spelled in retrograde as “unarăŢ.” Juxtaposed with the incredible structure a twelve-tone work requires is the free implementation of several musical quotations. Among them is the children’s song “Ţăranu e pe câmp” (“The peasant is in the field”). The placement of a song that includes “Ţăranu” in its title is doubly meaningful, as this song was also a favorite of Ţăranu’s daughter, Cristina, when she was a child. Other quotations used by the composer include Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, a Romanian “Happy Birthday” song, “O Tannenbaum,” Ţăranu’s Remembering Bartók, and the opening rhythm of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The middle of the work is aleatoric and improvisatory in nature, so that no two performances will ever be the same. This is the world premiere of Remembering Ţăranu ❖

MISSION

The American Romanian Festival Inc. is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster mutual understanding and promote American and Eastern European music and culture.

A specific focus of the festival is to encourage cultural awareness and understanding between people of culture, musicians, and artists of the United States and Romania. The festival organizes educational, cultural, and artistic events that take place in Romania and the USA. Founded in 2005, the organization supports cultural exchanges with Americans participating in events in Romania and Romanians participating in events in the USA.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

To make a tax-deductible contribution, please make checks payable to the American Romanian Festival Inc. and mail to:

American Romanian Festival Inc.

1407 Ferdon Road Ann Arbor, MI 48104

americanromanianfestival.org