Ana-Maria Avram passed away on the 1st of August 2017. The news became public on Sunday the 5th of August.
Composer, pianist and conductor, was born in Bucharest in 1961. After graduating from the National Conservatory of Music in Bucharest, she obtained a degree from Paris Sorbonne in 1992. In 1994 she was awarded the Grand Prize in Composition from the Romanian Academy.
Since 1988, Ana-Maria Avram has mentained a close collaboration with Iancu Dumitrescu, but she has also continued to forge her own direction in music. She is considered to be one of the most important Romanian composers of her generation.
Her music is affiliated with the spectral music trend. She represents with Iancu Dumitrescu the Hyper-Spectral trend in contemporary avant-garde music. Conductor with Dumitrescu of the Hyperion Ensemble. Her music is spectral, acousmatic, heterophonic and transformational.
Playlist :
Ana-Maria Avram : Anamorphosis
Ana-Maria Avram : Chiaroscuro for three cellos with Andrei Kivu, Clotilde Lacroix & Vasile Comsa
Ana-Maria Avram : Assonant III - Isabelle Hureau - flutes & Thierry Miroglio - percussion
A dialogue on Romanian Spectralism on Radio Columbia WKCR : Ana-Maria Avram & Bill Dougherty, March 2016, New York
Ana-Maria Avram & Cornelia Petroiu : Seven Romanian Folksongs (from Béla Bartok's collection (1))
Ana-Maria Avram & Iancu Dumitrescu : Zodiac Antique (prepared piano)
Ensemble Hyperion International : Ana-Maria Avram - Textures Liminales (III) - for ensemble and live electronics
Ana-Maria Avram : Metaboles (for solo flute) played by Isabelle Hureau
Member of Hyperion Ensemble from Bucharest -
group of composers and interpreters representing a new, experimentalist and innovative direction in Romanian music, she realized a lot of European tours, as well as conductor and composer.
Her music incorporates the outward semblences of abstraction of
archetypal sound, achieving its full development in the synthesis of
electroacoustic and instrumental sources.
Her music is affiliated with the spectral music trend. She represents with Iancu Dumitrescu the Hyper-Spectral trend incontemporary avant-garde music. Conductor with Dumitrescu of the Hyperion Ensemble
Her music is spectral, acousmatic, heterophonic and transformational. She composed since now around 130 works, music for soloists, chamber music, music for orchestra,electronic music and computer assisted music
Her main works are : Threnia I-II , Orbit of Eternal Grace for
orchestra and soloists, Ekagrata , Swarms , Seconde Axe , Un Aaggio Ardente for chamber orchestra, De Sacrae Lamentationem, In
Nomine Lucis , Chaosmos- for large orchestra, Zodiaque I-IV, Notturno I-II , Labyrinthe I-III , Signum Gemini , Ikarus I-IV , Traces, Sillons, Sillages, Doryphories , New Arcana, Ascent, Voices of the Desert, Telesma I-VII- electronic & instrumental music, Archae , Ç Metaboles , Axe , Quatre Etudes d’ombre, Ikarus-Kronos Quartet , Assonant I-III - instrumental andchamber musics, Horridas Nostrae Mentis Purga Tenebras, Nouvel Archae - computer assisted music.
Her music is published by Edition Modern, Electrecord, Editura
Muzicala, Artgallery, ReR Megacorp, Musicworks, Bananafish..
Her music was performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Stanford, in Vienna (in the Wien Modern Festival in 1992 and 1994) at Paris (several times at Radio France and Theatre de la Ville ), in London (at Royal Festival Hall, Conway Hall, LSO St Luke’s) Nancy, Allicante, Lisbon, Baden-Baden, Darmstadt, Moscow, Belgarde, Berlin,Minneapolis, etc.
Her works has been commissioned by prestigious ensembles such as
Kronos Quartet (San Francisco) Ç 20 Jahrhundert È from Vienna, soloists from l’Orchestre National de France, orchestras as Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra, Romanian National Orchestra, Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra, L’Orchestre de Chambre de Roumanie, etc.
On the Abolition of the Soul - a Radio France commission was released on a double CD- Radio France, as an anthology of Prix Italia since 1949.
She was performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Standford, in Vienna ( in the Wien Modern Festival in 1992 and 1994 ) at Paris ( several times at Radio France and Theatre de la Ville ) in London ( several times at Royal Festival Hall ) Nancy, Allicante, Lisbon, Baden-Baden, Darmstadt, Moscow, Belgarde, Istanbul etc.
Her works has been commissioned by prestigious ensembles such as Kronos Quartet ( San Francisco ) « 20 Jahrhundert » from Vienna, soloists from l'Orchestre National de France, orchestras as Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra, Romanian National Orchestra, Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra, L'Orchestre de Chambre de Roumanie, etc.
« On the Abolition of the Soul » - a Radio France commission was released on a double CD- Radio France, an anthology of Prix Italia since 1949.
PRESS Fragments
Romanian composer IANCU DUMITRESCU and his associate, ANA-MARIA AVRAM, leading figures in the Eastern European school of modern classical music have issued many stunning works through the years, but this is the first to be issued in America. Los Angeles, sept.1999
« Of the three CD's issued thus far, one also contains three excellent works by a pupil of his: ANA MARIA AVRAM, whose compositional style is every bit as fascinating and innovative, and is certainly a talent to look out for. .. »
Alan FREEMAN "AUDION" , Leicester , March 1993
ANA-MARIA AVRAM recently composed a quartet for Kronos, and followed it up with "Nouvelle Axe", peformed here by the strings of Romania's Hyperion Ensemble, who also work with DUMITRESCU. It's an uncompromising piece with a tendency to noise throughout, drawing blizzards of pizzicato, high - pitched sounds and lots of glissandos from the panoply of avant garde string effects.
ANDY HAMILTON - THE WIRE (49), August 1999, LONDON
Both Avram and Dumitrescu are convinced that if they have been able to open new doors in music, it is because they have made or found precisely those connections between musical activity and inner life that remain unarticulated in conventional musical training. This is not, however, simply a matter of theit philosophy and motivation as artists. The psychological reality if their music is directly grounded in a conception of the acoustic reality of sound.
Tim Hodgkinson, Musicworks No 71, Toronto, Summer 1998
“Works also features three compositions by ANA-MARIA AVRAM, born in Bucharest in 1961. Wonderful to hear music where textural innovations aren't employed to colour pre-existing structures, but evolve form in process. On Zodiaque she plays prepared piano opposite Dumitrescu, a percussionist and magnetic tape. Seems like these Romanians are engaged in a similar kind of sonic research to that which resulted in the masterpieces of Giacinto Scelsi and Ennio Morricone : collective endeavour, genuine "deep listenning". The results are similarly overpowering a milion miles from the tootling inconsecuence of most of what passes for New Music in the classical world.” BEN WATSON - The Wire, London May 1995
Main works:
"Quatre Etudes d'Ombre" for bass flûte (1992)
"Axe" for cello (1993)
"Métaboles" for bass clarinet (1985)
"Quatre Etudes orphiques" for female voice, electronics and ensemble (2006)
"Nouvelle Axe" for strings (1997)
"In Nomine Lucis" for orchestra (1992)
"Telesma" for clarinet, percussion and computer sounds (2002)
"Chaosmos" for orchestra (1996)
"Lux Animae" for ensemble and computer assisted sounds (2004)
"Voices of the Desert" for ensemble and computer assisted sounds (2005)
" The Endless Burning Fire" for ensemble and computer sounds (2007)
"Un raggio Ardente e di si chiara luce" for strings (2000)
Contribution in musicology: ”Ana Maria Avram and Iancu Dumitrescu” - Musicworks Nr 71, “Being composer” - MusicWorks nr.76 ( 2000)
“Ana-Maria Avram: an adventure in experimental music” an interview with Costin Cazaban, Bananafish, Los Angeles no 15 ( 2001)
Jean-Noël Von Der Weid: “La Musique du XX Siècle” - Paris, Hachette, 20041980-1985 - she accomplished studies of composition at the National University of Music- Bucharest