Bogdan Bácanu, The Wave Quartet, Romanian National Symphony Orchestra, Cristian Mandeal
Biography Bogdan Bácanu, The Wave Quartet, Romanian National Symphony Orchestra, Cristian Mandeal
Bogdan Bácanu
one of the most prolific marimba players today and has made it a goal is to establish the marimba as a solo instrument in the world of music.
Born in Bucharest in 1975, Bogdan Bácanu was already a percussionist with the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest at age 13 and became professor for marimba at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz at age 23, making him the youngest professor in his field worldwide. Since 2011 he has also been teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Bogdan Bácanu himself studied marimba at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Peter Saldo, his mentor.
Since the beginning of his career, Bogdan Bácanu has been giving solo recitals and concerts with orchestras and ensembles. Musical engagements have taken him all across Europe as well as to Asia, Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United States. He is also a regular guest at music festivals worldwide, performing at the Salzburg Music Festival, the Lockenhaus Festival, the Biennale in Brisbane, the Princeton Marimba Festival, the Voices of Percussion in Vienna, the Grafenegg Music Summer as well as the Carinthian Summer, the Donau Festival, the World Marimba Festival in Osaka and the “les musiques” Festival in Basel.
In concerts, he has worked together with musicians such as Gidon Kremer, Heinrich Schiff and Keiko Abe. He also has a close partnership with the Japanese marimba player Momoko Kamiya.
Bogdan Bácanu has played under the baton of numerous renowned conductors, including Dennis Russel Davies, Kent Nagano and Seiji Ozawa. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Heilbronn Symphony Orchestra, the Romanian Radio National Orchestra and the Bucharest Philharmonic and well as with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
As an interpreter of contemporary works, Bogdan Bácanu has made a name for himself in numerous world premieres. Composers like John Thrower, Alexander Müllenbach and Emmanuel Séjourné have dedicated works to him, several of which he has recorded on CD. Moreover, as a teacher and juror, Bocan Bácanu is regularly in demand at academies, festivals, universities and competitions worldwide. In 2006 he founded his own international marimba competition that is held every three years in cooperation with the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the international summer academy of the Anton Bruckner Private University.
In the course of his musical career, Bogdan Bácanu has received countless prizes and awards. In 1998 he was recognized as “musician of the year” in Australia and became honorary professor at the Sichuan University in China.
In 2008 Bogdan Bácanu formed the Wave Quartet, which, made up entirely of marimba players, is an essential aspect of his work. Since their debut in Berlin, the ensemble has been receiving enthusiastic reviews from both the press and public for their concert tours and recordings.
Bogdan Bácanu plays exclusively on ADAMS Marimbas. The renowned instrument manufacturer developed the 'Bogdan Bácanu Signature Series' of marimba mallets and presented a marimba at the 2015 Musikmesse in Frankfurt that was developed together with Bogdan Bácanu and named after him.
The Wave Quartet
„Refreshingly different,” “Highly musical and somehow infectious,” “rousingly enthusiastic playing”–these are just some of the attributes that were given to the Wave Quartet by the press for Loco, their latest release. For the past eight years the marimba quartet has been approaching music ranging from the baroque to the modern with musical gusto, curiosity and enthusiasm.
The impulse for the quartet’s establishment was a special wish by Bogdan Bácanu, one of the most experienced and renowned masters of his art. Passionate about baroque music, he wanted to be able to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s concerto for two harpsichords on the marimba and therefore founded the Wave Quartet together with three top-class colleagues: Emiko Uchiyama and Vladi Petrov, who, together as a duo, were prizewinners of several international competitions and Christoph Sietzen, prizewinner of the International ARD Competition and “rising star” of the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO). The ensemble was officially born in 2008 at the Berlin Konzerthaus, where they performed Bach’s Concerto in C major, BWV 1061a, in an arrangement for four marimbas. It was a concert that thrilled both the press and public, not least because of the quartet’s respectful treatment of the original version but also for the historically informed manner that they approached Bach’s music. Since then, the repertoire of Bach and contemporary composers has been an important aspect of the quartet’s work, leading them to performances with, among others, the Mozarteum Orchestra in the Salzburg Festival Hall and the Romanian National Symphony Orchestra at the Athenaeum in Bucharest. Further concerts and master classes have taken the Wave Quartet to many countries throughout Europe and Asia, where the ensemble has been met with great enthusiasm.
In 2008, the debut CD of the Wave Quartet, Aurora Borealis, was released, which followed one year later with a recording featuring all three of Bach’s concertos for two harpsichords, performed together with the Salzburg Barock under the direction of Peter Saldo. Senza Ripieno, their third recording that was released in 2011, is an intimate recital disc featuring rarely heard baroque works without orchestral accompaniment. In January 2016 the GENUIN classics CD Loco, in which the ensemble dedicates itself to works by Carlos Gardel, Astor Piazzolla and Rodrigo y Gabriela, was released. In this recording, the four musicians and their marimbas musically relay the passion and drama of Tango Nuevo with the same sensitivity and authenticity found in their approach towards baroque music. The next project is already at the starting blocks: in concertos for two to four marimbas, the quartet, together with L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, once again explores the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Wave Quartet plays exclusively on marimbas by Adams Musical Instruments.
