Violeta Dinescu
Composer and Professor of Applied Composition at the University of Oldenburg
Doctoral Studies Grant 1982-84, University of Heidelberg
"My doctoral supervisor told me: Go and compose your opera, that's more important, because theatre doesn't wait"
Violeta Dinescu is considered one of the foremost composers of our day. "I'm an acoustic person. Once you've developed an interest in something, an openness emerges and that works miracles," says the 51-year-old Romanian. "Without openness, people remain caught in their memories." But interest is like an "Alice in Wonderland": "You open one door and look into a magic garden, and this is just the beginning of many more gardens." With her music, Violeta Dinescu would like to give everybody the key that takes them to their personal garden. The Professor of Applied Composition, who has been teaching at the University of Oldenburg since 1996, has won more than 50 prizes and awards. Her extensive musical work ranges from instrumental music, choral literature, film scores, ballet compositions through to operas. Trained at the Bucharest Conservatory, the artist not only wants to create beautiful sounds, but also wants to send a message with her music. "Mathematics helped me follow the path to my own language." Mathematical models form the starting point for her "musical constructions".
After the dramatic opera "Hunger and Thirst" gave her the breakthrough in Freiburg in 1986, Violeta Dinescu created the children's opera "The 35th of May". Always pursuing just one direction contradicts the ups and downs of life. Composing represents the direct link with life's structures, says the pupil of Myriam Marbe, who is known well and far beyond the borders of Romania. A prize brought the young composer to Germany in 1982. In Heidelberg, the distinguished music researcher Ludwig Finscher opened up many doors for her and she applied successfully for a DAAD doctoral studies grant. However, she didn't eventually write her doctoral thesis. "My doctoral supervisor told me: Go and compose your opera, that's more important, because theatre doesn't wait." Lectureships in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Bayreuth, and now Oldenburg, followed. Autumn 2005 saw her take part in the Berlin Enescu-Conferences, held to mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the composer George Enescu, also a Romanian.
She believes that if she had grown up in Germany, she would not have progressed so far. "In Romania, I never had to prove that a woman can compose. If I had been forced to constantly battle against prejudices, I would sooner or later have done something else," says Violeta Dinescu − a composer without whose works the German concert programme would be unthinkable today.
Composer and Professor of Applied Composition at the University of Oldenburg
Doctoral Studies Grant 1982-84, University of Heidelberg
"My doctoral supervisor told me: Go and compose your opera, that's more important, because theatre doesn't wait"
Violeta Dinescu is considered one of the foremost composers of our day. "I'm an acoustic person. Once you've developed an interest in something, an openness emerges and that works miracles," says the 51-year-old Romanian. "Without openness, people remain caught in their memories." But interest is like an "Alice in Wonderland": "You open one door and look into a magic garden, and this is just the beginning of many more gardens." With her music, Violeta Dinescu would like to give everybody the key that takes them to their personal garden. The Professor of Applied Composition, who has been teaching at the University of Oldenburg since 1996, has won more than 50 prizes and awards. Her extensive musical work ranges from instrumental music, choral literature, film scores, ballet compositions through to operas. Trained at the Bucharest Conservatory, the artist not only wants to create beautiful sounds, but also wants to send a message with her music. "Mathematics helped me follow the path to my own language." Mathematical models form the starting point for her "musical constructions".
After the dramatic opera "Hunger and Thirst" gave her the breakthrough in Freiburg in 1986, Violeta Dinescu created the children's opera "The 35th of May". Always pursuing just one direction contradicts the ups and downs of life. Composing represents the direct link with life's structures, says the pupil of Myriam Marbe, who is known well and far beyond the borders of Romania. A prize brought the young composer to Germany in 1982. In Heidelberg, the distinguished music researcher Ludwig Finscher opened up many doors for her and she applied successfully for a DAAD doctoral studies grant. However, she didn't eventually write her doctoral thesis. "My doctoral supervisor told me: Go and compose your opera, that's more important, because theatre doesn't wait." Lectureships in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Bayreuth, and now Oldenburg, followed. Autumn 2005 saw her take part in the Berlin Enescu-Conferences, held to mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the composer George Enescu, also a Romanian.
She believes that if she had grown up in Germany, she would not have progressed so far. "In Romania, I never had to prove that a woman can compose. If I had been forced to constantly battle against prejudices, I would sooner or later have done something else," says Violeta Dinescu − a composer without whose works the German concert programme would be unthinkable today.
