SAT, 05 NOV 11, 20:00 KINGS PLACE – HALL TWOBUY TICKETS HERE
Maria Răducanu
[Romania] [UK Premiere, Only UK Performance This Year]
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ARTIST: Maria Răducanu
COUNTRY: Romania
GENRE: An explosive mingling of Romanian ethos and nowadays music (blues, jazz, avant-garde…)
MORE ABOUT: Maria Răducanu, singer and songwriter, was born on the 3rd of November 1967, in Husi, Vaslui County, Romania. Encouraged by her father, she started to play violin and guitar at a very young age, but by the time she was 15 years old she had already “discovered” her voice… a voice so hard to describe. Maria Tanase and Edith Piaf were a big influence.
She doesn’t like CVs and they don’t like her either. Given the general confusion of ethical and cultural values of the contemporary world, she thinks it as being a measure of minimal protection (of the fragile step into Art) the rather skeptical attitude regarding labellings, “recommendations”, “prize awarding festivals”. She considers herself a “simple” singer or, even better, a mourner of the byzentine rite.
An autodidact. She studied the violin and the guitar. And the French Literature at the A. I. Cuza University from Iasi and at the University of Bucharest. At the same time, between 1984-1993, Maria Răducanu participated at all the major youth festivals in the country, as a songwriter and interpreter of jazzy-music. She was awarded the highest prize distinctions, welcomed by the public and praised by the press.
After a 7 years break, starting with January 2000, Maria appeared again in the club and festival life of Bucharest and of the country, imposing herself as an artistic presence of first range (as far as one can talk about recognition when one isn’t creating a music of market-place). Last year brought her impressive achievements: 7 single albums, among which 2 (“Pe Vale” and “Lumini”) nominated at the Civic Society Festivities by the Union of Composers and Musicologists from Romania as “the best jazz discographic creations of the year”, as well as tours in Romania and abroad (the US, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Albania, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, etc). Maria Răducanu appeared as a guest on the albums “Viata Lumii” (with the Mircea Tiberian Trio) and “Margento” (a project coordinated by the poet Chris Tanasescu). She collaborated with the majority of the jazz musicians from Romania (Johnny Răducanu, Mircea Tiberian, Vlaicu Golcea, Sorin Romanescu, Pedro Negrescu, Sorin Terinte, Mihai Iordache, Eugen Nichiteanu, etc) and with personalities of the western jazz (among whom the Germans Maurice de Martin, Jan Roder and Michael Griener, the Americans Chris Dahlgren, Ben Alarbanel-Wolff and Travis DiRuzza, the French Siegfried Kessler and Malo Vallois, the Swedish Krister Jonsson). She created a project of “songs” in duo with the classic guitarist Maxim Belciug. In 2005 she toured Great Britain with the Margento project (poetry performance/action painting/psychedelic sounds/vocal improvisations) participating at the Fringe Festival Buxton where they were awarded the prize for the Best Avantgarde show.
Maria Răducanu is an artist hard to be stylistically categorized. Being a classic nonconformist, at her every appearance, she provokes the public to sincerity, openness and to breaking the cliches. Maria Răducanu doesn’t sing for snobs, although her music is subtle and refined. Sitting cross-legged on a small street in Paris or standing on the stage of some Philarmonic, her singing gives life to the same creed as Dostoievsky’s, that the beauty will save the world.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:
- “Ziori” (Tzadik, 2010) with Marc Ribot (guitars, bass) and Nicolai Adi Chiru (second guitar)
- “Pure Music” (The End Film, 2008) with Krister Jonsson (guitar)
- “Troika – Chansos Russes” (Arbore Sonor, 2005) with Maxim Belciug (guitar)
- “La Tarara – Chansons Espagnoles” (Arbore Sonor, 2005) with Maxim Belciug (guitar)
- “Chants du Levant” (Institut Francais de Bucarest, 2005) with Jan Roder (bass)
- “Lumini” (La Strada Music, 2004) with Mircea Tiberian (piano)
- “Viata Lumij” (2003) with Mircea Tiberian Quartet
- “Colinde” (La Strada Music, 2002) with Vlaicu Golcea (double bass) and Sorin Romanescu (guitar)
- “Pe vale” (La Strada Music, 2002) with Vlaicu Golcea (double bass) and Sorin Romanescu (guitar) (nominated for The Best Jazz Discography Creation award)
SELECTED PRESS REVIEWS AND QUOTES:
“Tzadik is proud to present the first domestic release by the astonishing Romanian singer Maria Raducanu. Possessing one of the most distinctive voices in the world, Maria mixes Romanian dirges with Fado, Rembetika, blues and improvisation in creating a music that is pure, deeply emotional and goes straight to the heart. Joined here by the incredible guitarist Marc Ribot for an intimate duo recital, this is a remarkable cd of doinas that casts a hypnotic spell, and will appeal to lovers of jazz vocals, world music and more.” (Tzadik)
“Sitting cross-legged on a small street in Paris or standing on the stage of some Philharmonic, her singing finds its place under the same Dostoyevsky’s creed that beauty will save the world. Maria Răducanu doesn’t sing for the snobs, although her music is of great refinement.” (Maxim Belciug, Dilema magazine)
“Maria Răducanu is like no other before her – her pure sound does not resemble anybody else’s one although she sings Maria Tanase’s songs as well as other pieces of folk music, along with Portuguese Fado, songs of dirge and joy in so many foreign languages, as she is endowed with the genius capability to “sing” in various dialects and to liltingly phrase things in the language, like a poet. Her “choreography” is also a pure and deeply personal one, whereby a figure reminiscent of Brancusi’s “Prayer” looms dimly, meditating on Providence by dint of singing, somehow kneeling without touching the floor with her knees as if “levitating” the way saints raptured by the Holy Ghost do. Still, Maria Răducanu, “a lass from Husi”, started by studying Literature and Philology first and it was only then that she made a mark in Music by translating Romanian traditional lays into a unique and never heard before style. (…) That particular spiritual and bodily mood rich in harmony, which puts me in mind of not only Orpheus but the art of shamans too, as well as those tempting fairy spell-chants (also documented in Swedish folklore and held in great esteem in the culture) and their singing and dancing in circles. Those features amount to a gift for enchanting the listeners, for infecting them with a healing state of mind which the ancient Greeks would call KATHARSIS.” (in “The Poetics of Romanian Jazz” by Gabriela Melinescu, Romania Literara)
“Maria Răducanu’s voice has certainly been blessed with a rare gift. (…)The casual manner she adopts in approaching the inner nature of the song, the elegance she shows in its smallest details, the delicacy she reveals in touching the words, cleaning them of dust and residues, the nonchalant rhythm in which she swings her song – all communicate a floating feeling that only the voice of the chosen ones prove.” (Matei Florian, “On Spirits and Gift”, Dilema Veche)
“For many, Maria Răducanu’s personality is no longer a secret, being one of the most popular jazz singers. (…)Although she launched her first CD quite late, at present she has 7 CDs, most of them in collaboration with foreign artists (France, Germany, US), but also with Romanian ones. Those who have listened to her have identified the marks of Maria Răducanu’s music with the avoidance of cliches, mannerism and commercial. The present CD “Cantece Din Rasarit” (…)is meant not to promote the folklore, but rather – thanks to Jan Roder, a foreign musician who is not familiar with the styllistically Romanian “patterns” – to rediscover the forgotten archaic enclosed in it. Maria Răducanu and Jan Roder count on plainness and quintessence. Music and voice have a force that Maria Răducanu brings back from an archaic “Illo Tempore”, with ritual inflexions, and under the subsidiary urge to look within ourselves and discover us to be the blessed inhabitants of an universal Levant rather than the ones of the recent Balkan Kitsch.” (Ioan Cristescu, “Maria Răducanu and the Immemorial Music”, Financial Newspaper)
“The Romanian singer might compete on an equal footing with the present jazz individual voices in the world, in which the monopoly held by English has been diluted to the benefit of more and more varied linguistic sonorities. She has interpreted Romanian, Portugues and Aromanian songs, mastering the semantic nuances and the whole sonorous spectrum of the voice. Maria Răducanu has the inborn and unmistakable gift of the great singers, such as Maria Tanase or Amalia Rodrigues, expressed in the creative manner specific to the jazz.” (Virgil Mihaiu, Steaua magazine)
SELECTED VIDEO:
SONGS:
BOOKING AGENCY: RED ORANGE
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SAT, 05 NOV 11, 20:00 KINGS PLACE – HALL TWO