Trio Contraste

Members:

Ion Bogdan Ştefănescu – flute(s)

Sorin Petrescu – piano

Doru Roman – percussions

 One of the best Romanian new music ensembles, Trio Contraste was founded in 1986. Since than, Trio Contraste has been performing all over Romania and abroad, over 40 concerts per year: Germany, Holland, Luxemburg, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Austria, China, Sweden, Poland. All three members of Contraste  also have highly respected solo careers, performing classical music as well but, when together, their main purpose is to promote Romanian contemporary music. Most of the trio repertoire was dedicated to Contraste by important Romanian composers like: Anatol Vieru, Aurel Stroe, Myriam Marbé, Stefan Niculescu, Nicolae Brandus, Octavian Nemescu, Corneliu Dan Georgescu, Eugen Wendel, Lucian Meţianu, Doina Rotaru, Violeta Dinescu, Maia Ciobanu, Sorin Lerescu, Dan Dediu, George Balint, Petru Stoianov, Irinel Anghel, Diana Rotaru etc

The Trio is permanently invited to take part in the “International New Music Week” festival in Bucharest, which takes place every year, in May. Also it performed in many international festivals like East – Vest Amsterdam (1991); Contemporary Music Festival – Huddersfield (1993); Nueva Musica – Bogota (1993); Musicarama – Hong- Kong (1995); Piano Plus Festival – Bamberg and Zeit fur Neue Musik – Bayreuth (2001); George Enescu Festival – Bucharest (2003, 2007), Culture Escape – Switzerland (2007), Stockholm New Music – Sweden (2008), Krakow New Music Festival – Poland (2008).

Trio Contraste was awarded the Romanian Composers and Musicologists Union Prize (UCMR) in 1986 and 2009 and, a few years later, in 1990, a Stipendienpreis in Darmstadt, Germany. One of its members – Ion Bogdan Ştefănescu – was also awarded the UCMR Prize, in 2007, for his solo activity.  In the same year, Trio Contraste became Solo Trio of “Banatul” Philharmonic in Timişoara.

The Trio is often invited to take part in many brodcasted cultural events. The ensemble has recorded for Romanian Radio Society, Deutschlandfunk-Köln, WDR, Société de Musique Contemporaine Lausanne, Bayeriche Rundfunk, Swiss 2.

Official website, HERE.