PARMA Music Festival Performer Spotlight: Ovidiu Marinescu

Today we're shining the spotlight on a longtime PARMA artist and friend Ovidiu Marinescu. An outstanding musician of his native Romania, Ovidiu now teaches at West Chester University in Pennsylvania and performs extensively around the world. Ovidiu has many notable performances and achievements as a cellist and a conductor. He has performed with the National Radio Orchestra of Romania several times as a soloist and conductor, and has also been a featured soloist with the New York Chamber Symphony, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Helena and Newark Symphonies, the Cleveland Philharmonic, the Orquestra de Extremadura in Spain, and others. He has been in the studio this summer recording an album of solo cello and chamber music works that will be released with PARMA in 2015.

Ovidiu has appeared as a soloist on many PARMA releases, including BACH CELLO SUITES, MOTO PERPETUO, the 2013 PARMA Music Festival 2013 Live album, our FINE MUSIC compilation series, and CONTINUUM.

Ovidiu was a major player in last year's festival, performing a solo set followed by a collaboration with local favorites Fiveighthirteen and Tan Vampires at the Seacoast Artist Showcase, performing his brother Liviu Marinescu's "Quodlibet Sonata" at the Hometown Heroes concert, serving as the moderator in the "Licensing and the Music Industry" panel, and playing solo repertoire at the Festival's Main Event.

This year, you can find Ovidiu performing in the In the Key of C-Span concert on Wednesday afternoon and playing the opening set at the Dance Hall in Kittery, Maine on Wednesday night. He'll also be headlining the Main Event at The Music Hall playing Haydn's "Cello Concerto in C Major" with the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra.

Ovidiu's wife Sylvia Ahramjian will also perform in the Festival this year on violin at the In the Key of C-Span concert on Wednesday morning and the PENDULUM Society of Composers, Inc. album release concert on Friday morning.

Ovidiu’s involvement in the inaugural PARMA Music Festival last year in the historic downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire inspired him to write a poem about his experience, which you can read below.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Ovidiu and Sylvia and see them perform at several events throughout the Festival! 

Follow this link for the full Festival schedule: www.parmamusicfestival.org/schedule.html

Portsmouth August by Ovidiu Marinescu

Portsmouth August brings cool branches in the summer sun,

Rescored birdsongs escape out of the box

On a background of tremolando strings,

Some, hit with the wood line of the bow,

Three in a row,

Lined up like sparrows on a wire.

The violist stands out;

“Hit it boy, don’t scratch it,

Push and stop gasping,

I wanna see the rosin in a cloud,

Like a halo around your head.”

Drop of cold sweat drops in motion slow,

Hitting the stand like a crystal bell,

Echoing through the air,

And stopping like a fly on the inverted photo,

Stuck to the glass,

A faded memento of tomorrow,

Suspended in time, no space, a muted serenade.

You can hear Ovidiu performing some classic repertoire on BACH: CELLO SUITES (Navona Records 2011). 

For more information or to purchase the album, please visit www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv5840/