Horia Andreescu

Horia Andreescu is Principal Conductor of the George Enescu Philharmonic Bucharest and develops a special relationship with the most important Romanian musical institution since his debut in 1987. Until 2010, for more than eighteen years, he was the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Romanian Radio Orchestras and Choruses. During the 1980s and 1990s he was Permanent Guest Conductor of three leading German orchestras: Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, and Mecklenburg Staatskapelle Schwerin.

A prize-winner at major competitions, such as Nicolai Malko in Copenhagen and Ernest Ansermet in Geneva, he started his studies in Bucharest, continued with Hans Swarowsky and Karl Österreicher at the Vienna Academy of Music, and completed his training with Sergiu Celibidache in Trier and Munich. Between 1974 and 1987 he was Principal Conductor of Ploiești Philharmonic.

Equally at home in Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, or Bartók and a usual companion of superstar soloists, he is also a highly praised champion of new music and an active promoter of young talents. For his accomplishments in the field of contemporary creation, he was awarded the Critics’ Prize at the Berlin Music Biennale in 1981. As Associate Professor at the National University of Music Bucharest, Horia Andreescu nurtures the next generation of conductors and instrumentalists and he regularly serves as a jury member for a number of international competitions.

As a guest conductor he was invited to lead such prominent ensembles as Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, the Vienna, Jerusalem, Icelandic, Alabama, Taipei, and BBC Scotland Symphony Orchestras, the Vienna, Leipzig, Hamburg, Köln, Copenhagen, Madrid, Katowice, Sofia, and Ljubljana Radio Orchestras, the Netherlands Radio’s Philharmonic, Symphony, and Chamber Orchestras, the Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Budapest, Johannesburg, Wrocław, and Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestras, the Israel, Netherlands, and Vienna Chamber Orchestras, The Orchestra of Arena di Verona, Collegium Musicum Copenhagen, and Ensemble Modern.

With the Bucharest Virtuosi—the elite chamber orchestra he founded in 1988, George Enescu Philharmonic Bucharest, and the National Radio Orchestra Horia Andreescu toured extensively in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and United Kingdom.

His symphonic and operatic performances were enthusiastically received at major festivals such as George Enescu, Wiener Festwochen, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Wien Modern, Berliner Musik-Biennale, EUROPAMUSICALE München, MusikTriennale Köln, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Zagreb Music Biennale, World Symphony Orchestras Moscow, RNO Grand Festival Moscow, Santander Music, Spoleto, Martina Franca, Tainan Arts, Copenhagen, and Istanbul.

Among his close collaborators are many of the world’s leading soloists, artists such as Dmitri Alexeev, Boris Berezovsky, Dana Borșan, Rudolf Buchbinder, Nikolai Demidenko, Valentin Gheorghiu, Nelson Goerner, Dan Grigore, Zoltán Kocsis, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Michael Roll, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Eliso Virsaladze, Marin Cazacu, Natalia Gutman, Mirel Iancovici, Mischa Maisky, Truls Mørk, Vladimir Orlov, Gustav Rivinius, Joshua Bell, Nicola Benedetti, Gabriel Croitoru, Krzysztof Jakowicz, Leonidas Kavakos, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Silvia Marcovici, Mihaela Martin, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Liviu Prunaru, Vadim Repin, Ștefan Ruha, Alexandru Tomescu, Viktor Tretiakov, Maxim Vengerov, Ion Voicu, Wanda Wiłkomirska, Xavier de Maistre, Viorica Cortez, Ileana Cotrubaş, Bernarda Fink, Angela Gheorghiu, Anita Hartig, Sharon Kam, and Christian Lindberg.

Horia Andreescu’s rich discography encompasses a wide range of styles and skilfully blends the Renaissance and Baroque rarities, the Classical and Romantic masterpieces, and the Contemporary premieres. It consists of more than 60 albums released on Olympia, Attacca, Q Disc, Marco Polo, Bayer Records, RCA Red Seal, Hastedt, cpo, ErkiTónlist, Aksak, Electrecord, Artexim, and Casa Radio Publishing House. Moreover, a considerable number of his live and studio recordings are preserved in the sound archives of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Deutschlandradio Berlin, West German Broadcasting Cologne, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, and Israel Broadcasting Corporation.

One of his most ambitious initiatives is the recording of the complete cycle of George Enescu’s orchestral works, a world premiere released during the 1990s by Olympia and reissued by Electrecord in 2015. This project was received with great critical acclaim and contributes significantly to the increasing worldwide recognition of the Romanian national composer. Besides Enescu’s music, one of his particular areas of interest, Horia Andreescu constantly promoted the Romanian contemporary creation through the numerous first performances, recordings, and tours he realized. Among the finest composers for which he has a special affinity are Wilhelm Georg Berger, Pascal Bentoiu, Paul Constantinescu, Myriam Marbé, Ștefan Niculescu, Tiberiu Olah, Constantin Silvestri, Aurel Stroe, and Anatol Vieru.

The extensive range of his activities and preoccupations confirms Horia Andreescu’s status as a veritable ambassador of the Romanian musical culture. It also outlines the portrait of a mature and complex artist, a full master of the subtlest means of the art of conducting, whose most important artistic virtues are the originality of conception, the stylistic diversity, the rhythmic vitality, the intonational precision, and the maintenance of a continuous inner tension.