Dan Grigore | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 6 August 1943 Bucharest, Romania  |
| Genres | Classical music |
| Occupation(s) | Pianist |
| Instrument(s) | Piano |
| Years active | 1957 - present (61 years) |
Dan Grigore (born 6 August 1943) is a Romanian classical pianist. He is regarded as one of the great pianists of the twentieth century, as well as one of the four greatest Romanian pianists of all time (along with Clara Haskil, Dinu Lipatti, and Radu Lupu). [1]
Dan Grigore was born in 1943 in Bucharest, Romania. His father, Nicolae Grigore, was a fighter pilot in the Romanian Air Force and a World War II hero (subsequently promoted to general); one street in Bucharest is named after him. His mother, Polixenia (née Cosîmbescu) was a housewife.
Grigore took his first music lessons with his mother, who had studied violin in her teens. At the age of three, he began to play his own compositions. In 1949, at six, he started private piano lessons with Eugenia Ionescu, a famous teacher of her time who had studied at Leipzig with Robert Teichmüller and Max Reger. She immediately realized that the child had absolute pitch. Eugenia Ionescu used to hold musical soirees in her home, where she would invite famous pianists and teachers of the time to listen to him, including Florica Musicescu, Cella Delavrancea, Constanța Erbiceanu, Muza Ciomac, Silvia Șerbescu, Nadia Chebap, and Madeleine Cocorăscu, among others. It soon became clear that Grigore was a child prodigy. It was during these musical soirees that Dan Grigore was discovered by the famous composer and professor Mihail Jora (member of the Romanian Academy), a close friend of George Enescu and former teacher of Dinu Lipatti. [2]
Around 1955, Grigore's family was in deep financial trouble following the Soviet occupation of Romania (August 23, 1944). After the Romanian Communist Party's rise to power (by frauding the 1946 general elections) and the forced abdication at gunpoint of King Michael I of Romania, Grigore's father had been stripped of all his military decorations and dismissed from the army during the great Communist purge of the 1950s. Also, Grigore's maternal grandfather had been sent to prison and lost his pension for sending a letter to the American Embassy in which he had described the abuses of the Communist regime. Given the family's hardship and the child's unusual talent, Mihail Jora (although in financial trouble himself due to similar political reasons) generously offered to give Grigore private lessons free of charge, which he did for the next seven years (between 1955-1962). Jora had great admiration for his young student. In a reference sent to the Ministry of Culture, he stated, "Dan Grigore is an exceptional talent which all the so-called 'great Romanian talents' bear no comparison to". [2] This resulted in a special scholarship (1955-1958) awarded by the Romanian Composers' Association.
In 1957, the fourteen-year-old Grigore made his first appearance on stage with three recently discovered works of George Enescu in first world audition (Chorale, Burlesque, and Carillon nocturne from the Piano Suite no. 3 Pièces impromptues, Op. 18).
Between 1958-1962 Dan Grigore also studied with the famous professor Florica Musicescu, former teacher of Dinu Lipatti. During this time, he received a special scholarship from George Enescu's widow, Princess Maria Cantacuzino, who granted him personal use of the great composer's piano for five years. [2]
In 1962, on the recommendation of his two mentors, Florica Musicescu and Mihail Jora, Grigore was awarded a five-year scholarship at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory (Prof. Tatiana Kravchenko). The close encounter with the Russian music, literature, and society proved crucial for the young pianist. It was also during this time that he first attended live performances of Sviatoslav Richter, Aldo Ciccolini, and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. However, the personality clash with Kravchenko (despite his excellent student record), combined with the extremely poor living conditions in the student facilities of the Soviet Union (extreme cold, lack of hot running water, poor food, disease, and lack of private access to a piano) ultimately made him drop the five-year scholarship after completing the first two years in 1964. He received full scholarship and transferred (as a third-year student) to the Bucharest Conservatory, from which he graduated first in his class in 1967. [2]
In 1968, the famous professor and conductor Nadia Boulanger offered Grigore a full scholarship at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, which was denied by the Romanian Communist regime. In 1969, Jora won the Herder Prize and nominated Grigore for the Herder one-year scholarship at the Vienna Academy of Music (under the supervision of the revered professor Richard Hauser). Hauser was so impressed with the young pianist that in 1970 he attempted to secure a one-year extension for Grigore's scholarship. The project never came to fruitition because of Hauser's death. [2]
 | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (January 2019) |
Constantin-Nicolae Silvestri was a Romanian conductor and composer.
Constantin "Dinu" Lipatti was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from effects related to Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. He composed few works, all of which demonstrated a strong influence from Bartok.
The National University of Music Bucharest is a university-level school of music located in Bucharest, Romania. Established as a school of music in 1863 and reorganized as an academy in 1931, it has functioned as a public university since 2001. It also offered training in drama until 1950, when this function was taken over by two institutes which were later reunited as the Caragiale National University of Theatre and Film (UNATC).
Paul Constantinescu was a Romanian composer. Two of his main influences are Romanian folk music and Byzantine chant, both of which he used in his teaching. One of his students was composer Margareta Xenopol.
Florica Musicescu was a renowned Romanian pianist and musical pedagogue, daughter of the renowned composer, conductor and musicologist Gavriil Musicescu.
Radu Lupu was a Romanian pianist. He was widely recognized as one of the greatest pianists of his time.
Myriam Marbé was a Romanian composer and pianist.
The George Enescu Festival, held in honor of the celebrated Romanian composer George Enescu, is the biggest classical music festival and classical international competition held in Romania and one of the biggest in Eastern Europe. Enescu's close associate George Georgescu organized the first festival in 1958; highlights included a performance of Bach's Concerto for Two Violins with Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh as soloists and a staging of Enescu's sole opera, Œdipe, with Constantin Silvestri conducting.
Mircea Ștefan Gogoncea is a Romanian classical guitarist.
Mihai Brediceanu was a Romanian composer, conductor, and musicologist.
Ştefan Gheorghiu was a Romanian musician, violinist and teacher, born in Galați, Romania.
George Georgescu was a Romanian conductor. The moving force behind the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for decades beginning shortly after World War I, a protégé of Artur Nikisch and a close associate of George Enescu, he received honors from the French and communist Romanian governments and lived to make recordings in the stereo era.
Valentin Gheorghiu was a Romanian classical pianist and composer. He is regarded as a leading Romanian pianist of the twentieth century, focused on both piano concertos of the Romantic period and chamber music. He won the prize for the best performance of Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3 at the first George Enescu International Competition in 1958, with his brother Ștefan as the violinist. He made recordings with international orchestras and conductors.
Hilda Jerea was a Romanian-Jewish pianist, conductor, and composer. Born in Iaşi, she began her education at the Conservatory of Music in Iaşi and finished it in Bucharest where her teachers were Mihail Jora, Florica Musicescu and Dimitrie Cuclin. After graduation she pursued further studies in Paris and Budapest. She played the piano in concertos or chamber ensembles from 1936. Her best-known composition is the oratorio Under the Wake-Up Sun from 1951. She was distinguished with the State Prize of Romania and the Order of Labour.
Mindru Katz was a Romanian-Israeli classical pianist.
Alexandru Hrisanide was a Romanian pianist and composer who was a representative of late 20th century Romanian avant-garde. A Netherlands resident since 1974, he taught piano and composition at the Amsterdam and Tilburg Academies of Music. Hrisanide's music achieves an original synthesis between archaic melos and modes on the one hand, and the accomplishments of the modern Viennese school on the other. He won the Lili Boulanger Foundation Prize in 1965.
Ferdinand Weiss was a Romanian collaborative pianist and a professor at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Emil Simon was a Romanian conductor and composer.
Radu Paladi was a Romanian composer, pianist, and conductor. His compositions include stage and film music, choral works, vocal music and vocal-symphonic works, chamber music, symphonic music as well as concertos.
Dan Mizrahi was a Romanian-Jewish pianist.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
