Violeta Dinescu Recordings

Violeta Dinescu was born in 1953 in Bucharest. She graduated with distinction and received three diplomas in composition, piano and pedagogy from the National Music University of Bucharest, where she studied with her mentor, Myriam Marbe. After graduation, she held
various teaching positions for music theory, piano and aesthetics at the music high school “George Enescu” in Bucharest, and in the year 1980 she became a member of the Romanian Composer’s Association. Concerts, awards and radio broadcasts brought her increasingly into the public eye. In 1982, Dinescu became a permanent resident of Germany. There, she studied musicology with Ludwig Finscher. She has received numerous international awards of recognition for her work, such as the first prize at the International Competition for Composers (Utah, 1983), the Carl Maria von Weber Prize (Leipzig, 1985), the Baldreit Prize (Baden-Baden, 1991) and the New York University Prize for Composition, as well as being the recipient of various grants. Violeta Dinescu’s works, which have appeared on numerous CDs, encompass music of the most diverse genres and performing forces. She has served on many commissions and juries, and in 2017 became a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Dinescu is regularly invited by universities in Europe and the United States for masterclasses and symposiums and she has been offered many teaching positions in Germany, such as the Academy for Evangelical Church Music in Heidelberg, the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main / Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and the Hochschule für evangelische Kirchenmusik / University of evangelical church music in Bayreuth. From 1996 till 2021, Violeta Dinescu was Professor for Applied Composition at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg. There, she initiated an international series of colloquiums which still exists today and has since been integrated into the academic curriculum.

Dinescu’s works are much performed at home and abroad. The traditional music of her native country, together with Byzantine-orthodox church music remains an essential source of inspiration for her. In 1996, she founded an archive for East European music with an emphasis on Romania. Throughout the years she has maintained an intensive co-operation with the distinguished Romanian Trio Contraste. From 2006 to 2021, she organised the symposium series »ZwischenZeiten«, which took place annually in cooperation with the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Delmenhorst (HWK). In 2017, Violeta became a member to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA) in Salzburg. In 2021, she co-initiated the new colloquium series ART MEETS SCIENCE & SCIENCE MEETS ART there as Dean of Class III ARTS.

[photo © by Nicolae Manolache]